Five Night's at Jesse's
by LadyMaito
Summary: In the spirit of Halloween, what remains of the wealthy Black family has decided to put on a Haunted House- in the name of charity, of course! Join Rory, who's been recruited to the scene due to "technical difficulties" as he gets caught up in something he didn't sign up for- and a sarcastic Jesse, who's attitude should have already sent Rory packing. Rory-centric.
1. Chapter 1

**AN:** Happy October! My favorite month!

If you haven't guessed already readers, this is another story inspired by a horror video game called "Five Night's at Freddy's." I thought the title was kinda funny, though I considered simply calling it "Five Nights". If you haven't heard of, played it, or watched online gamers or otherwise play it, that's fine because I won't be following any specific plot here. As per usual with my stories. You'll learn all you need to as you go. By the way, I am going to work my ass off to finish my other Halloween-themed stories by this upcoming Halloween.

Anyway, sorry for being so slow with the updating. College, financial troubles, family and just plain depression has been kicking me in the ass lately. But I have hope that it'll get better eventually. But enough about me. I hope you enjoy it! I know it's a little unorthodox for me to write with main characters such as these, but hey, I wrote it and so I must've thought it would be worth reading.

See you at the end!

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 **Join the Black family at the site of their estate this Halloween for a creepy and fun-filled walk through of this year's featured Haunted House!**

 **Attraction includes over thirty seasoned actors, professionally built sets and the latest in animatronic technology. Each room of the building will feature a new scary theme, however some areas such as Rec Room C of the second floor, and the entire third floor are off-limits to attendees. Admissions cost only five dollars ($5) and all profits go to Whitechapel's local charity.**

 **( _Volunteers for maintenance are welcome and much appreciated, particularly those with fair knowledge of mechanics and/or electronics_.)**

 **WARNING : Young children, the elderly and those with heart conditions proceed with caution, as the exhibits may be overly frightening. **

**Neither the Black family nor maintenance, nor employees or volunteers will be held accountable for any accidents. The building is secure and equipped with emergency lighting, however individual flashlights and cellphones are encouraged, especially in the corn maze.**

 **Stay safe and have fun!**

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 _Knock, knock, knock._

Pause.

Blue converse tapped against the grand stone steps. A quick glance at his watch told him he'd been waiting for exactly six seconds since his last knock. Seven seconds.

 _Eight, nine._

He pressed the doorbell and waited a few more moments.

 _Knock, knock, knock._

Semi-interested bright blue eyes, not unlike the color of his shoes, and quirked blonde brows appraised the opaque windows surrounding the double-doors. He supposed if he were rich, he would put windows he couldn't see out of around his grand front doors too just because he could. The blonde puffed out his cheeks slightly, pressed the doorbell and raised a hand to knock again.

"Yeah, yeah, I said hold on!" A voice from behind the door called and Rory froze his fist an inch from the door. A moment later, a casually dressed but very annoyed looking teen (man?) was staring out at him.

Said man raised his eyebrows and gave Rory a sarcastic half-smile. "Can I help you?"

This was said rather rudely, but Rory let it fly over his head as per usual, his pleasant albeit aloof look not faltering.

"One of my friends called in to volunteer yesterday, but he had to go out of town...unexpectedly." Rory turned his head to the side as he heard an odd metallic creaking from somewhere to his left. "So he asked me to come in his place."

"Oh. The gee- ah, teenage computer gee- _wiz_ my mom hired." The boy (man?) struggled for words for a moment before opening the door fully, as he'd been previously holding it as if ready to slam it in Rory's face. "Come in...please."

Rory walked in, a skip in his step and a small smirk on his face. The boy obviously, even to him, wasn't used to using such manners. Especially, Rory thought, on a "commoner" like himself.

"I'm Rory, by the way." Rory introduced himself, rocking on his heels. "But you can call me the Rorster. Or the Rorster Keanster. Or RA or R- _Money_ or R-Khalifa-"

"Ah, o-okay that's enough," The man held up a hand, with a tight-lipped smile that didn't reach his tense eyes. "Thanks. _you_ can call me _Jesse_."

A shiny key ring was thrown casually at Rory's chest and the blonde scrambled to catch them before they could like, fall and crack the marble floors.

"You can head out back through _those_ doors," Jesse pointed just behind Rory. "To the warehouse, where I'll be needing your help. I'll be out momentarily, just wait by the entrance."

It was only then that Rory realized that what Jesse had shown up in- a silky pants the color of mercury, with an equally silky button-up shirt- was probably what passed as nightwear in this house. Or, mansion, whatever. He was also barefoot, but, of course, his hair still looked stylish, like he should be wearing one of those " _I woke up like this_ " shirts. Rory wondered if he wore those clunky glasses all the time.

He made his way bewilderingly out the doors Jesse had motioned to and into a vast yard with a fountain, the greenest grass Whitechapel had to offer, and glorious hedging trimmed to perfection. Well beyond the line of the hedge and through grass that got slightly taller as the yard went on, was a house. Or, at least it _looked_ like one. A big one. It was three stories tall, and looked to also have a basement, and the structure itself had a low oak fence surrounding. Vaguely, Rory wondered if he had the right _house_. Jessie did say warehouse, didn't he? And this structure was bigger than almost any common home in their little town.

Well, it was the only structure around, right?

Taking one last look at the mansion behind him, he headed towards the decked-out warehouse. Once at the doors after climbing the steps of a clean wooden porch, he reached for the knob but recoiled when he heard some kind of maniacal laugh from just on the other side of the door.

A moment later, a sweaty and ruffled looking blonde pushed her way through the double doors and cast him a sidelong look as though to say, ' _You're going in? Good luck'_ and proceeded to take a shrieking (hopefully battery-powered) clown head down the steps and out into the yard. Before Rory headed in, he heard a crash a moment before the head stopped screaming.

' _Oh boy._ ' Rory thought as he looked around the warehouse. Everything in it seemed to be covered in bloody cloth or shielded by dirty-looking curtains. A few splatters of blood colored the walls here and there, and he could hear people conversing and moving things around somewhere beyond the maze of roll-away privacy curtains.

Suddenly curious, he made his way over to the obvious entrance to the exhibit and began walking through the maze. Here and there were fake syringes dripping blue fluid and scalpels stained with blood- all of which were fake, Rory hoped.

It wasn't long before he came across a big door, labelled "Authorized Personnel Only" that he found something that looked even moderately out of place. A huge blue computer screen attached to a sleek monitor. And, a coffee cup laying on its side with some creamy, foaming mocha spilled on its side.

Without a care in the world, or so it seemed, Rory made his way in and began his cleaning of the PC and the hazardous and unkempt wires protruding from the ceiling lifts. This place was so high-tech it even had the lift-over ceiling panels like an office building or school!

Absently, he wondered why these people didn't just hire a personal technician to care for their electronic needs. These breakers and wires looked like they hadn't been touched in ages- which, in itself, wouldn't have been such a bad thing, if not for the fact that it looked as though rats had been gnawing on some of them. Daring rats, coming into a place like this. Rory suspected the family would get motion lasers when they found out.

Luckily, Rory had brought along some electric tape for a quick fix, and so he was perched atop a stool, atop a chair, just finishing wrapping the last of the frayed spots and replacing the ceiling panel when Jesse Black walked into the room.

"There you are!" The raven-haired man (boy?) scowled. "I've been looking for you for like three minutes."

"Well, I've been in here for almost thirty. Don't you think it's a little late to keep your volunteers waiting?" Rory asked with no real malice as he stepped down and off the stool, then off the chair with two quick, albeit clumsy movements.

"You are the one who volunteered." Jesse shrugged, eyeing the blonde with a superior look, this time, without the clunky black glasses he'd been wearing when he answered the door. "Anyway, what are you doing in the ceiling, dork? I told you to wait by the door."

"I have trouble staying still for extended periods of time. I followed the sound of coffee falling over onto that keypad." Rory shrugged and squirted hand-sanitizer from his bag on his palm before rubbing it around. "Anyway, any short-circuiting you have in the surrounding area _should_ work a little better now, though I suggest finding someone with more experience to look at it."

"What are you talking about?" Jesse asked obnoxiously as he scowled and looked up at the ceiling. "Those wires? Who cares about the wiring in here? This is my mom's idiot intern's office. As if she ever does anything useful. Some intern. Anyway..." He turned and exited the room, turning off the lights rudely and leaving Rory to scramble after him. "I'm sure there are things that need fixing down in the basement as well, if you get around to it. But the real problems start in the furthest rec rooms on the second floor and the entire third floor."

"It would have even nice to know that earlier." Rory muttered and glanced at his watch.

"If you would have waited patiently, you wouldn't have wasted your time." Jesse glanced back at him and opened another door to reveal a brightly lit stair case. He peered in and slid on a pair of sunglasses from the pocket of his leather jacket before heading up the stairs with Rory in tow.

"So, what kind of technical problems are we talking about?" Rory asked, watching his step as plastic Halloween debris was scattered here and there.

"Well, from the reports of my family's employees, there's the basic lights flickering and electric glitches in the back of the second floor. And a lot worse on the entirety of the third floor." Jesse sighed and moved his sunglasses to rub at his eyes, his footsteps sluggish.

"Okay, here's how it works, each floor has two sections, and each section is split into two or more sub-sections. An old building stood here before this one, and it made sense at the time _this_ building was erected to make it as huge as the previous one- otherwise, it would have looked half-assed, and my grandparents couldn't have that."

Jesse pushed another door open as they reached a new landing and paused before entering. "Anyway, this place has fallen somewhat into disrepair without a regular technician to care for it. And besides that, it's only been used by my uncles and cousins for woodwork and bachelor parties for the past half-decade or so."

"Well, at least the ruggedness adds to the Halloween theme." Rory didn't really see anything rugged at all about the building, but tried to be polite. He was cast a raised eyebrow and Jesse's lips raised slightly at the corners.

"Exactly. Isn't my mother creative? That's why she put out an ad for volunteers anyway. Figured anyone kind or bored enough to volunteer wouldn't mind keeping quiet about our neglect to the place. By building, after all. A lot of people could use the extra space that we have."

"Well, I had nothing better to do." Rory answered as Jesse led him into an open area. "So where are these sections you talked about?"

"This particular area is going to be part of the Halloween house, so the slide-out walls have been retracted. But the last section down that way is where I believe we store the uh...automatons."

Was it just the nonexistent cold wind, or did the way Jesse said 'automatons' seem vaguely uneasy? It made Rory tilt his head to the side in brief confusion.

"Automatons?"

"Well...you'll see..." Jesse led him down the open area, past stacked crates, boxes and random dusty furniture to the paneled sliding wall labelled REC C. In the far corner where two walls met off to the right, Rory noted absently, was a beige camera that would have blended into the wall perfectly, were it not for the shiny surface of the black lens. Once Jesse opened the door, though, Rory turned from his distraction and immediately recoiled. The blonde gave a surprised yelp as he jumped back behind the wall to peek around the corner.

"What the hell is that?!"

"This would be Foxy." Jesse's smile glittered as the sunlight hit perfect white teeth. "Handsome fella isn't he?"

Just inside the entrance to the room, stood a tall and shiny, orange, metal fox. Scratch that, upon unpleasant closer inspection, it wasn't all shiny but had rusted in some places, with spiderwebs in others, such as those between his ears and menacing metal gap-teeth. An eyepatch was raised horizontal above his left eye, revealing a gaping hole with a mess of wires inside, and in the place of his left hand was a shiny hook. His right hand, was much more rusted and battered down to the basic frame and wire.

"What-" Rory made a face, then edged inside the room to stand somewhat close and slightly behind the raven-haired man. This was one of those automatons that he'd been talking about. A children's toy by the looks of it, but then why was it so...

"Gruesome, right?" Jesse asked, not seeming to mind Rory's close proximity, but instead smirking and going to stand by Foxy, throwing an arm around the thing's shoulders. Quite a feat, considering the automaton had to have been over six feet, and only bypassed Jesse's own height by an inch or two.

"Why is it so..." Rory shook his head, blinking. "Uh, never mind. That thing's creepy. I mean, wicked cool, but severely creepy. Let's just get going."

"Sure." Jesse smiled darkly before flipping down the robot's raised eyepatch with a _clang_.

The room Rory was led to had drape-covered objects, stools, ladders, window glass and other odds and ends. Back against the far wall to the left lay an old and battered piano. But this room turned out to be only a quick stop, as Jesse led him up another flight of stairs to the third floor. It wasn't until they reached the landing that Rory realized he hadn't been told exactly why Rec Room C was off-limits to visitors.

"So, why is Rec Room C closed off again?" Rory asked. "You can't put Foxy to good use? Seems like he has no trouble being creepy."

"Well, actually, that creepiness is kind of the trouble." Jesse glanced back at the blonde. "Let me show you the third floor and then we'll talk."

The third floor seemed simple, like most of the second, consisting of mostly dusty crates, ajar ceiling panels and in some places, open ventilation ducts. This floor, however, had actual hallways instead of slide-away walls and curtains. The first two doors they passed were closed, but the third one was open and the wall facing the hallway was made mostly of glass, with a huge window facing the hallway- and Rory had no idea why that was.

The chilling thing, was that in the room with the huge glass window stood another automaton. This time, it was made of violet painted metal and had tall bunny ears and a lumpy tail that stuck out it's backside- seeing as it stood facing the opposite wall.

The last room, however, much like the last floor was a lot more interesting than the others. For one thing, it was crowded with books, microphone stands and odd computer parts scattered across a large desk. A bookcase sat against the left wall, next to what appeared to be another huge vent and the right wall was taken up mostly by the huge desk, which had cupboards attached to it, up the wall like a vanity. The third wall, directly across from the door, had large windows that over-looked some of the yard, and the western end of Whitechapel in the distance.

Scattered across the desk, in front of three decent-sized computer screens, were candy and food wrappers, books, electrician manuals, spare computer parts, new wires and RAM disks. Atop the cupboards of the desk were dusty knick-knacks, old magazines and there were inappropriate photos and posters taped to the walls that made Rory struggle not to blush.

"Such a slob." Jesse seemed not to notice the perverted photos and instead made a sound of disgust at the desk. He then picked up a stray pen, which he used to push the leftover wrappers from the desk onto the floor. "Disgusting. I'll have Dara clean this up before you get to it."

"Huh?" Rory averted his eyes from the big-busted women on the wall and blinked at the dark man.

"Now that we're all through with the tour, here's the general rundown..." Jesse sighed, lifting his sunglasses from his eyes and setting them atop his perfect, black hair for a moment before squinting slightly and setting them back down on his elegantly sculpted nose. Really, the guy could be a supermodel, you know, if he lost the air of hostility and smiled a bit more.

"So, you saw Foxy, right?"

"Totally, I saw her." Rory nodded, shaggy blonde locks falling in his eyes. "There was a bunny robot in the other room with the windows too."

"Right, the purple rabbit. Anyway, you've already seen what the inside of the ceilings look like, but that wasn't quite the issue that we wanted to call someone in to fix." Jesse paused and then shrugged. "Or, well...examine, I should say. Monitor."

"Okay." Rory nodded, then lit up as he remembered seeing something black and shiny in the room on the second floor. "What am I monitoring? Is that why there was a camera on the second floor?"

"Camera's are everywhere, actually." Jesse nodded, going over t the window to lower the shades. "You noticed the room with the big windows where the rabbit ended up. That was a part of my uncle's studio, like this room was. If you were listening, I told you that this building has been used for a lot of things, but neglected a lot in past years. This junk is what he left behind. Anyway, he was really paranoid about people stealing his sound or whatever, so he set up camera's everywhere, and my parents didn't object too much, since we've been broken into before."

This would have surprised Rory, if he hadn't been pushing the pointy hat of a bobble-head wizard that sat on the desk. "Really?"

"Yeah, really." Jesse answered, preoccupied himself, by all the dust that had collected on the windowpanes and the blinds. With a scowl, he turned back around to face the blonde.

"So...cameras. Break-ins." Rory blinked as he looked back at Jesse. "Shouldn't you hire a security guard for that stuff? I'm only a high school graduate."

"...Look, I'll just cut to the chase." Jesse pulled his shades completely from his face and revealed deep black eyes to Rory, starkly different from his own. "The robots are starting to act up during the night. It's the reason we don't let people past Rec B on the second floor. The off-limits places mentioned in the flier, the ones I just showed you, house the props we acquired from a children's restaurant that had some bad luck a few years ago."

"Umm, act up?" Rory gave him a confused stare. "What does that mean? Like, fire hazards?"

"It means they act up and move around during the night. My dad meant to fix them up, but never got around to it, until last month, when he hired a man to take a look at them. They were like statues before that stupid mechanic toyed around, but then he went and had an accident and left them here like this."

"Wait, wait, let me get this straight." Rory's eyes were wide. "They _move around_? Like, how does that even happen? And you haven't talked to anyone before me about maybe _fixing_ this?"

"My mother was a minute away from hiring a professional when your friend called to volunteer." Jesse shrugged nonchalantly. "It would be bad for the family rep if these things ended up hurting one of the kids or their parents when Halloween comes."

"Oh, yeah. Something like that would ruin the rep..." Rory nodded, thinking that it would be awesome to get to look at the insides of those things, however creepy they were. The last time he'd even seen one was when he was probably six or seven and too young to know what RAM disks, multi-circuits, heat sinks or motherboards were. "So...you want me to fix these things? Or the faulty wires in your ceilings?"

"I'm sure my mother and father would appreciate any help you could offer. Especially on the first floor and with these stupid robots, since that's where most of the action will be happening." Jesse have him an odd look, then. Almost like he was attempting to act like a normal person rather than a haughty rich-kid. "You know, my parents were going to pay you anyway. Even though you volunteered to do it."

"Well, I would have done it anyway." Rory smiled brightly at Jesse. He would have, that was the truth. Because even if he didn't get paid, volunteer work looked great on any resume. "So, do these monitors still work, with the cameras?"

"They should. My dad'll be pissed off if they don't." Jesse threw a grimace at the desktop before tapping one of the towers on the floor rather roughly with the toe of his boot, making Rory wince.

"So. When can I get a look at those bad boys?" Rory asked, deciding to jump right into it, adjusting the pack on his shoulders.

"Whenever you decide to get going, I guess." Jesse shrugged, turning back to the door of the room. "But downstairs would probably be priority due to the amount of people that are gonna be walking through there."

"Right, the first floor." Rory suppressed a pout. No robots that day.

"And the basement." Jesse looked back at him, pulling his sunglasses on again. "Most of the second floor too, I'll bet."

"By the way..." Rory started, as he kicked around some wrappers Jesse had pushed to the carpet. "You said the last person who worked in here got hurt?"

"That's right!" Jesse answered, way too cheerfully, as he exited the room, again leaving Rory to follow. "Clumsy old man with a wig."

"How did it happen? Should I like, watch out for falling rafters and falling bookcases?"

"The accident? Uh..." Jesse glanced back at Rory, who was right on his heels as they passed the room with the violet bunny facing the wall. "He was electrocuted."

Rory's eyes widened as he looked down at his bare hands, which had just been wrapped around frayed wires not twenty minutes ago. "Electrocuted..."

"Yeah. They found him in one of the vents with his head half inside an electric jack-o-lantern. Must've been a tweaker."

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"Hold it still!"

"I am holding it still!"

"If you're not going to help, just hang up!" Rory complained, standing atop the same ladder he'd been standing on all damn day. Internally, he whimpered as his neck ached. The wires that connected the monitors to the cameras wasn't in the ceiling, per se, but high up in the wall.

He didn't need to be listening to Ethan give Benny instructions on how to get a better signal when _he_ was the one who called, needing help. He sighed.

"Which one is disconnected again?" Benny's impatient voice crackled over the iPad Rory had brought along. Upside to decked-out warehouse: a big, high speed internet server that no one was around to use except for him.

"The blue one." Rory whined.

"Okay, so a dark blue or like teal or turquoise?"

"Benny! It's blue!"

"Okay, so just connect the blue wire to..." Ethan struggled to peer through the iPad at what Rory was looking at. "The blue port?"

"That helps, there's three of them!" Rory exclaimed, getting fed up and just plugging the wire into one of the blue ports, connecting them. Nothing happened.

"I think maybe two of them are just there for show." Benny's stupid face dominated the screen, as Ethan was only in the connection through audio. The shorter of the brunet geeks himself wasn't in Whitechapel either, but getting settled early into a dorm that both he and Benny would be sharing in the upcoming college semester.

"When does anyone just have them for show, Benny?" Ethan sighed, and Rory could hear him flipping pages. "And when did all three of us suddenly lose our edge on computers?"

"I should have taken that last computer class." Rory mourned loudly. "I knew I should have, but I got cocky and took Advanced Calc and now look where I am!"

"Surrounded by half-nude women?" You could hear the smirk in Benny's voice.

"Scrambling to get these stupid monitors hooked up to the cameras before tomorrow." Rory glared at the black panel in front of him- far more advanced than what he was used to. "I promised Jesse that I'd have it running perfectly."

"Why would you do that?" Ethan asked incredulously. "Rory, if it's too much, just go home. It can't be that bad. These people are rich, they can have three professionals in there at the drop of a hat."

"But you should have seen the look on his face!" Rory yelled as he plugged a new wire into a random port and watched quite a few bulbs light up on the panel. "He looked like he doubted that I could turn a PC on by myself, much less run a whole four-floor system. It's bad enough I have to call my geek friends to help me with setting up basic communications-"

 _CREAK_.

Startled, Rory glanced at the door. Had Jesse come back?

"What was that?"

"Is that interference?"

"Rory?"

"I think the rich kid might have come back." Rory answered and eyed the door wearily. The last time someone had come to check on him, several hours ago, was when the same blonde girl from before had rushed past him _again_ and up the stairs. When he'd gone up after her, after tending to the main control panels of the first floor, she'd been gone and the office he currently sat in had been cleaned down to the now nonexistent dust-bunnies atop the monitors.

"Tell him to leave us alone." Benny snarked, obviously put out by just the thought of Jesse Black, who'd pushed him around a few times when the three of them had all been freshmen in high school and Jesse had been a junior.

"I think I have to go, guys. Mandatory meeting for our hall, Ben."

"See ya, E."

"Bye Ethan, thanks for the help!"

A moment or two later, Ethan's connection to the conversation cut out and when Rory didn't hear any more noise come from the hall, he shrugged and hopped down from the ladder.

"I really hope this works." Rory muttered, glancing out the windows of the office. It was almost nightfall outside, and he had the last of his scholarship applications to fill out. Plus, he was starving.

"It should, we've tried everything in the book, literally." Benny sounded exhausted as well.

"Still at that apothecary?" Rory asked and shook out his hands and cracked his neck, seeing as he'd been in the same position for over an hour.

"Yeah, my great aunt is still away with my grandma. How old ladies can have so much to gossip about in one sitting is beyond me." The brunet sounded both annoyed and amused. "Surprising amount of visitors though, for a pagan place like this."

"Well, you know the trends. Organic in, plastic out." Rory began poking around the towers, making sure everything was plugged in right.

"Tell that to the girls on your wall." Benny winked suggestively from the desk and Rory ducked his head as he plugged in one last cord that he was pretty sure led to the middle computer monitor.

"Okay..." Left to right, Rory switched on the monitors, and one by one, the monitors lit up.

"Woo!" Benny crowed from the pad. Rory punched the air in gratification and relief.

"Finally, I can go home!" Rory stood on stiff legs, almost falling over. "Thanks for everything, Benny, I owe you one definitely!"

"Wait, Rory, can't you stay online until-"

"Yeah, I'll call you later! Promise! Or maybe tomorrow morning! I bet E'll pick up if you call again!" Consumed with the need to be out and in open air, away from this building, smelling of dust and metal. "Thanks again, Benny!"

"Ror-"

With only a twinge of guilt, Rory smiled at his friend through the screen and ended the connection.

Signing, the blonde stretched and turned off the PC, satisfied with the knowledge that everything would be ready for the next day. The next five nights he'd be spending in the building.

Opening the door, he screamed suddenly and stumbled backwards, dropping his bag full of tools and spare pieces, landing, thankfully, against the rolling computer chair. At the same time he screamed, a higher pitched shriek sounded from the hall, just beyond where a tall metal figure stood- an automaton in the form of a duck.

"Oh! What the heck?! You scared me!"

"You scared me!" Rory defended himself, clutching at where his heart was pounding against his ribs. "What are you doing with that thing?!"

"I was just about to ask you the same." The blonde from earlier that day stepped inside the room, past the freaky duck, with it's mouth hung open and one eye poking out of the socket. "It's pretty creepy, huh?"

"Well, when you put it in front of a door in the middle of the night.." Rory shook his head, noticing suddenly that the girl was really quite pretty, and smiled his best girl-charming smile. "I'm Rory! The tech guy for this place, apparently!"

"I'm Dara. It's nice to finally know your name." The girl nodded, smiling a bit and glancing down to where Rory's possessions lay scattered across the floor. "Wow, I'm sorry, maybe I should have made more an effort to be quiet."

"What? This?" Rory asked, wanting to stop the look of guilt dancing in her pretty green eyes. "This is nothing! Trust me! A pretty girl like you can knock me over anytime!"

Dara simply looked up at him and moved a lock of hair away from her eyes, before kneeling to help him pick up the fallen tools. Rory smiled proudly at the blush on her cheeks, and then his cheeks and ears proceeded to turn pink when he realized exactly how many near-naked women decorated the office.

"Uh, it's fine, really." Rory took the bag from the floor and threw it under the desk, away from the both of them. He quickly ushered her outside the door with mutterings of faulty lighting and wanting to get home as soon as possible. They made it past the duck and into the main area of the floor before she spoke again.

"Are you sure? It was my fault in the first place."

"What was your fault?" A new voice asked from the stairway.

Both blondes jumped at the sound of Jesse's voice. Jesse, who looked rather irritated with the both of them, and was leaning against the doorway to the stairs, giving the perfect impression that he'd been just standing there waiting for them to notice him and had gotten tired of it.

"What did you do this time, Dara?" Jesse asked, none too kindly. "Was it another clown head? I told you that thing was a bad idea, and then you went and made a burn mark on the lawn. Now, apparently, your being a burden to our computer geek."

"Hey!" Rory forgot the initial surprise at seeing the dark-haired man and stepped forward a little. "She didn't do anything, I fell down on my own!"

"So, you pushed him? Dara, Dara..."

"No! She didn't!" Rory insisted. "That yellow thing scared me and I fell over!" Neither of the others missed the blush that dusted Rory's face at his own words and Dara averted her eyes with a look of sympathy and mild amusement. Jesse smirked, seeming to forget that he's been irritated just a moment before.

"So, Chicka likes you, is that it?" Jesse asked, tilting his head at the blonde male in a way that made Rory's insides feel funny. "Well, what can I say? I don't know what to do with either of you." His eyes flicked to Dara. "Except you, intern. There's a glitchy fax machine in the west office with your name written all over it. I'd like to see it running and printing in the morning. Now go."

"Sorry, Jesse." Dara looked down and gave Rory a quick smile, brushing against his arm, probably on accident, as she left. Instead of appeasing him, the apology seemed to make Jesse's expression darker. "It was nice meeting you, Rory."

"Bye Dara!" Rory waved, even though she couldn't see it, watching her squeeze past the raven-haired man with care not to touch him, and then faced Jesse with a disapproving look.

"You shouldn't be so mean to your employees."

"Right. Well, she's not mine, she's my moms." Jesse sat up straight from his position against the stairs. "Anyway, let's take a look at the office, shall we? Check your progress?"

"I just left the office!" Rory groaned. Usually, he wouldn't dare pout around his employers- his mother had drilled it into him to respect authority figures in the workplace as much as he could, but this was _Jesse_. Benny was right, he had been and still was a real jerk. "I'm not supposed to have an office job until I'm like thirty!"

"Stop whining, dork. I'm just checking, jeez."

Rory paused as he studied the duck automaton on their way back into the office. What had Jesse called it...? Chicka? He gave it a confused look as he noted that it's left hand was stuck out to where the doorknob would have been if the door were closed.

"So you were just going to leave the light on? That's running up my electricity bill, geek." When the obnoxious man's voice broke Rory from his thoughts, and the blonde looked over, Jesse held up Rory's bag.

"Oh, that." Rory looked at the mess in the floor and bent to gather it up, grimacing and hoping to god that his disks weren't bent or scratched. "Sorry."

"Just as long as you clean up after yourself." Jesse smirked a little, just a quirk at the end of his lips. He looked down at the blonde, who didn't seem to mind or notice that Jesse wasn't lending a helping hand like Dara had offered to do, that the blonde had to reach around Jesse's boot-clad feet to reach containers of screws and chips. "Fine by me."

"I need to get all these naked women off of the wall if I don't want your mom's assistant to think I'm some closet perv or something..." Rory scowled to himself, kicking himself in his head, even though it was something he had no control over. Either way, tomorrow those suggestive photos were coming down.

"Funny, I didn't think you'd be the type to mind what she thought of you." Jesse murmured and Rory blinked up at him owlishly. Jesse turned away and waited for him to get up. When Rory finished, the man appeared to be examining the blinds.

"Something wrong?"

"No." Jesse answered simply.

Rory pouted as he was brushed out of the way and made to follow Jesse quickly before said bully, like, shoved him down and ran away, turning off the lights as he went. Before the raven stuffed him into a cupboard and left him there until morning. Before he knocked the bag out of Rory's hands and kicked away the contents, like he had with Benny those few years ago.

But Jesse did none of those things. Instead, he stood at the door and watched as Rory zipped up his bag.

"Ready?"

"Yeah." Rory answered, surprised in the back of his mind and following at Jesse's heels like he did earlier. The upper floors really were creepy, especially at night.

It wasn't until they were all the way to the bottom of the stairs at floor one that Rory realized they hadn't turned off one light on way down.

"Wait! The lights!" Rory turned around and stared up the stairs with disbelief. Was he going to have to run up and turn them all off, one by one?

"Don't worry about it." Jesse's drawl broke the blonde from his frantic thoughts.

"What?"

"I said d _on't worry about it,_ didn't you hear me? We have automatic lights, dork."

"But..." Rory started. "You're not going to make me run up the stairs and turn off every light? You're not going to make me pay the bill?!"

"Not unless you don't move your ass." Jesse cast him an annoyed scowl. "I shouldn't even have came up here. You're going to be more trouble than your worth, I know it."

Somewhere in the depths of Rory's thoughts, he processed that the feeling in his chest wasn't entirely indifference. The feeling was vaguely unpleasant, but Rory only huffed and shoved past Jesse, for the first time that day being mildly upset at the older man.

The only look Jesse gave him was a confused one. Indeed, the raven-haired man wasn't entirely happy with himself at that moment, because really the blonde had tried, didn't he? But instead of considering it further, Jesse squashed the feeling, the _humanity_ that reared it's ugly head only once in a while, and sighed tiredly. Easier to not care than to try and make it better. As it had always been.

Glancing back at Foxy, who looked very innocent and creepy at the same time, standing by the stairs, he shuddered lightly. The thing's right yellow eye was enough of an ugly sight, but that gaping hole on the left was simply terrible to look at. Maybe it was time to get rid of those things after all, instead of having the kid monitor them.

' _The first thing I'll do tomorrow._ ' Jesse thought with a sneer. ' _Is glue that damned eyepatch to its eyelid. That hole is an eyesore. Literally.'_

Smirking, Jesse turned out the lights and secured the building with a quick code typed into the wall-pad and closed the door, not realizing that he'd already flipped Foxy's eyepatch down that day- or that he had just exited from the first floor.

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 **AN:** So, there it is! I'd like to point out that I wrote three-quarters of this within the last few days, so I might just be getting my mojo back, guys! Been watching a surplus of Supernatural, maybe that's it.

Sorry for any mistakes, please correct me, and tell me what you think! Damn, I'm digging myself in deep with this. I'd say this story has two or three chapters left (But it doesn't seem right for this to have less than five), and that _Night Shifter_ has two, and _The Eight Pages_ has maybe three or four (though it really should have eight chapters total). How am I going to do this? :D I dunno. On top of that, I'm almost finished with the last chapter of my two-shot _The Fake Fiance_ , and I'm working on another for HITB. Stressful. Troublesome.

And BethanForever has gone off the map. My views are getting lower and lower it seems, but what can I say? I can't help myself. You'll definately be seeing more of my stories this month, I'm kicking myself in the ass to do this, so yell at me if you notice that I'm off the charts too, okay? Don't be pissed at me, I'm trying!

I'd appreciate reviews! Until next time! BTW, does anyone know what's going on with daylight savings? The struggle is real.

XX

 _Uploaded October 2nd, 2016. 9:35PM_ :D


	2. Chapter 2

**AN** : So, second chapter! I think this is a new record for me, it's only been five days and already I'm updating! Woo! How about that? :D

Happy October! Might be a little shorter than usual, but I wanted to update. I'm on roll right now. See you at the bottom.

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The first thing Rory noticed the next morning when he showed up to the Black compound was the sheer amount of people milling around the workplace. People were hauling fake coffins here and makeup chairs over there and setting up obstacles in the maze of curtains. It was madness.

Madness and a pretty blonde who smiled at him when he said hello and waved to him across the lawn while he cleaned the lenses on the security cameras, getting ready for his first night shift.

"So, you're really going to stay in that office until six in the morning?" Dara asked him incredulously as he worked on replacing some wires that had been giving Rec B of the first floor trouble. In other places, he had set mouse traps, ignoring Jesse's snide suggestion of just poisoning them and bombing the building. He'd seen the man sparingly that morning, talking to him for less than a minute and then seeing him weaving between employees and monsters alike. Actually, he didn't look that out of place.

"Well, it's what they need me to do." Rory whooped as he sat back and flipped a breaker. "Hopefully that did it."

"Rory, you've been at it all day." Dara smiled kindly. "Do you want to go and get a coffee or something?"

"I'd love to, really." Rory smiled apologetically, hating himself for refusing such an apportioning, but..."But Jesse wanted me to meet him for something around five. I should get going in a minute."

"Oh." Her smile didn't falter. "Well, that's cool, then. Hope that goes well, he kinda seemed even more hostile than usual today."

"He must just be having a bad day." Rory shrugged, trying to keep himself upbeat, but the thought of staying in that room for over six hours without leaving made him want to cry. "Anyway, I'll see you?"

"Yeah, see you." The redhead smiled and hesitated before she kissed his cheek as she left, leaving Rory to touch the warm spot with his fingertips and grin like an idiot.

Well, with her to keep him company over the next few days, it might not be so bad after all. His luck was changing! Granted, it was already past five in the evening, and he was starving...and he had to be rested and ready to _secure_ the building by ten o'clock that same night.

Maybe Jesse could wait?

Rory winced as he imagined a furious Jesse atop a throne, drawling angrily at the blonde that he was the worst idiot on hire in Whitechapel. The blonde didn't think his pride could be insulted anymore before he either lashed back out (unlikely) or went into full on sulk-mode, because while he could use the extra cash, he also didn't want to make a bad name for Benny.

Stupid Benny, Rory thought suddenly with a scowl, then a designated sigh. Benny and Ethan had cleaned up his messes in the past when he screwed something up by accident. And this job wasn't hard or particularly strenuous. He figured he owed his friend at least this much.

Even if he was going to miss Halloween this year, Rory sighed sadly. True, he _was_ getting a little old to go trick-or-treating, eighteen was pushing it a bit, but he loved Halloween! He supposed he could amuse himself by bringing in pumpkins to carve or candy to eat, or something like that.

After all, Halloween was in two days, and he'd have to continue to keep an eye on the workplace for two nights after that. Five nights total, he would spend in the Black warehouse, watching those damned security cameras. He seriously doubted that the robots would give him much, if any, trouble, and whoever was insane enough to try and break into a rich person's estate was probably not smart enough to carry it out.

Over all, he had total confidence in his abilities. After these next five nights, he might even have enough extra cash-money to make the final payment on his jeep.

 _Cha-Ching._

It was as the perky blonde with a skip in his step was nearing the Black mansion that his phone suddenly _dinged_ , signaling a text. Still walking, the blonde only stopped when he saw that it was from the white sheep of the Black family himself, (get it?).

 _Forget about meeting me today, just do whatever until tonight. My mom wanted to give you something, I'll send the intern up to the office with it later._

 _\- JLB_

"Weird...but cool!" Rory turned back around and began walking in the opposite direction, back towards Whitechapel. It was a little more than half a mile to the town, and then some to reach his house, but he had time to kill. He began jogging, deciding to grab some food and maybe get an hour or so in of gaming while he still could.

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 **9:47 That Night**

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"I should have brought a coat." Rory muttered to himself, soldiering through the dark and cold street. "Dammit."

Canada really came through with the cold winters, Rory thought as his teeth chattered. Hopefully, it would be warmer in the warehouse, though he didn't quite count on it. If worse came to worse, he'd tear down one of the ghostly curtains hanging around the place for a blanket.

refused to give Jesse the satisfaction of seeing another stupid decision on his part. Nope. Not today, at the very least. At least he was nearing the warehouse now. Just a few more meters.

Fingers stiff and cold, Rory fumbled with the ring of keys Jesse had given him the previous day before the blonde went home. He cursed as the first key didn't fit into the slot- no, luck didn't seem to be on his side that day. It was one of the side-doors to the warehouse, a way Jesse had told him about (not showed him) at the same time he gave him the keys.

"Come on!" Rory grunted as he pushed another one, and then another before a key finally slid in. "Thank god."

Shivering and near-numb, Rory rushed inside and slammed the door behind him. Clutching his pack to his chest like a lifeline, holding into the little warmth that still might have been in the bag, Rory made his way past crates and dust bunnies and into the main area to reach the stairs, which were pretty close to the east entrance.

Taking two at a time and almost slipping on the stairs, Rory rushed up to the security office, and slammed the door shut. Teeth still chattering, he turned on all of the office technology and rubbed his hands together rapidly. Hopefully, the heat would kick in soon- he'd found a working thermostat and ventilation system earlier, so he knew the place would warm up eventually.

Eager to get the shift over and done with as fluidly as he could, Rory set to installing a makeshift alert system that Ethan had modified from a mini-motherboard he'd constructed himself in sophomore year, an ancient TV radio, and an old Wii his family had discarded a couple of years ago. Really, Ethan or even Rory himself could have bought something like the scanner for a decent price, but where was the fun in that? The project had kept Ethan's (and sometimes Benny's) attention for all of a week and a half before the former got tired of modifying it any more, as he had declared that this was the best it would get.

The thing was a fire hazard for sure, if exposed to water or particularly strong amounts of electricity. A time or two, it had thrown sparks when the pieces grated together the wrong way, but for the most part, if kept stable and unplugged when not needed, it was reliable.

But this was the first time Rory had ever attempted to use it. The first time it had been plugged into a web of security cameras. Ethan would be proud.

But now, Rory was flicking on the TV screen.

"Come on, baby!" Rory hollered, looking closely at the fuzzy static of the screen before it settled to blue. "Show me what you got!"

In response, the mini-TV glitched, crackled, and then all three of the monitors by the desk glitched before the three screens lit up as well as the tiny screen. Displayed was as follows:

 **Camera Network-Error**

 **Audio Devices-Offline**

"Oh, great!" Rory complained, rubbing his arms to warm them. "Nothing can ever just go smoothly, can it?"

Shaking his head, he got to work on setting the three monitors straight, but, after ten minutes, could only get two of them functioning properly. The furthest one on the left remained blank, the middle one displayed the camera stationed outside at the main entrance, and could be changed to any camera in the network by clicking a display box in one corner of the screen.

The far right one currently displayed computer chess. Over the last year, Rory had somewhat lost his touch for the game.

But right now, at eleven o'clock, he figured what the hell? He had eight hours to kill, and everything _appeared_ to be okay. Once the cameras had been set up, he'd checked every one of them to make sure no one was squatting in any corners. There was no real need for audio anyway, if he could see what was going on. The tiny guide in the corner displayed all of the cameras in the network with easy-to-understand labels and abbreviations.

 **Main Entrance**

 **East Entrance**

 **Back Entrance**

 **Basement**

 **Basement Storage-Error**

 **1F-A**

 **1F-B**

 **South Staircase**

 **2F-A**

 **2F-B**

 **2F-C**

 **2F Storage**

 **East Staircase**

 **3F-A**

 **3F-B**

 **3F Studio**

There were some places, obviously, that didn't have cameras, like the restrooms on floors one and three, Dara's office on floor one, the lounge down the hall and the kitchenette area on floor two. Also, he only had to check the first and second floor sparingly, as he was hired mostly to watch the robots so he could report any "strange activity" to the Blacks. Rory's own office (or, at least the one he was currently occupying) didn't have a camera.

The " _Error_ " message on the scanner was easily fixed, as Rory disconnected the camera that was stationed in the basement storage room. After he did that, the " _Error_ " message came off of the " _Camera Network_ " tab. It didn't pose much of a problem anymore- that room was supposed to have been locked in the first place.

Rory had no hesitations about taking a quick walk-through of the building each time he showed up, now that he was only obligated to show up around ten at night. The mouse traps had been set, and the cameras were working well enough, if you disregarded the poor lighting. Now, he only needed to remember to bring a freaking jacket next time.

Life was easy. Cold, though. Well...work was easy- life, not so much, but both were chilly at the moment. Canadian Octobers, man. Eggnog sounded good right about then.

The duck automaton (a chicken thing, actually, as Jesse had corrected him) was currently chilling in the storage room on floor two, where Foxy had been the previous day. Foxy himself was in the far corner of the same room, and the bunny was still in the studio just on the other side of the wall to Rory's right.

Instead of being creeped, like the little voice in the back of his mind told him he should probably be, he was way interested in looking inside the robots. Like Ethan, and sometimes Benny, Rory had caught onto mechanics and electronics at a young age, becoming a fairly well-known geek in their middle school, and later, their high-school. He and the other two had basically rebuilt the AV, Robotics, and Chess clubs consecutively (which probably wasn't good for their image, but oh well).

So, it wasn't long before he got bored of winning the computer at chess and with a skip in his step that he walked down the hall and into the studio, flipping on the lights as he went.

Absently, he wondered why these things weren't walking around like Jesse said they would. If they didn't, the blonde was in no position to complain anyway, because it just made his job easier, but it would disappoint him. These were the real deal, made by top manufacturers and used by entertainment chains, not the replications he'd seen at science and engineering fairs.

"So, why aren't you moving, dude?" Rory stared imploringly up at the bunny's face, several inches above his own.

The bunny didn't move, nor did it reply.

Since it was facing the back wall anyway, it was a simple feat to pop open it's control panel on it's back with a screw-driver and take a look inside.

Wires, wires, wires, cords, chips, gears, pistons, and a lot of other things were revealed. Things Rory had usually seen only when exposed to the open air, taped on cardboard slabs on instruction manuals and on lab tables. Though this was a lot more advanced than the mini-bots the robotics club made. Down to the shining endoskeleton that glinted and glittered as he shined a light on it. It was beautiful!

An hour or so later, as he took notes and sketches and milked his detective skills for all they were worth (not very much) all he had found was an embedded switch behind the bunny's left eyeball that he didn't know the purpose behind, and a few buttons on the palms of its hands and behind its neck. Everything else was a work of art, except maybe the rusted, faded and scratched-up exoskeleton.

Something he did understand was that they had never been properly shut down or reset when they had been taken from their restaurant. It wasn't hard to figure these kinds of things out, if you knew what to look for, and Rory really did want got take out the memory cards to see what these bad boys did in their prime, but didn't want to run the risk of damaging them.

How many years ago was that again? And how did the Blacks acquire them? Only now did he begin to realize just how little Jesse had told him about his job.

Bottom line, they seemed perfectly harmless.

"Poor guy!" Rory patter the robot's shoulder. He really must tell the Blacks about their potential. "Maybe someday you'll get your chance to shine again!"

Checking his phone, he seen that it was well past one in the morning, and he still had over six hours to kill. Now, it was time to break out the handheld videogames, the thermos of coffee he'd brought and the bag of marshmallows.

You'd think after all of his careful packing, he'd have remembered to bring a a coat, or a hoodie, at least. Or to remember that he was supposed to have received something from Mrs. Black that had never arrived.

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 **6:56 AM**

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Rory blinked scratchy, dry eyes and sniffed again. His left arm in his t-shirt, and knees pulled up to his chest, he clicked away at the monitor on the far left, which had just been indicated on the Ethan-original scanner as having activity. The front entrance had been opened.

Jesse, Rory thought tiredly. Too tired, in fact, and too cold to argue with anything the leather-clad man had to say. He'd done his best- he'd checked the cameras frequently, had kept in his office for most of the night, and had even researched a few things to make sure that the automatons kept to _themselves_ when the Haunted-House goers came the next night.

Night one, completed. Four more to go.

"Hey." Rory decided to greet Jesse as normally as he could when he opened the office door- he'd heard Jesse's footsteps a few moments before. "I was just getting ready to..."

Jesse wasn't there. No one was there.

"To leave." Rory stared at the empty space, hefted his bag over his shoulder and just kept walking. Obviously, he was sleep-deprived and losing it. He just needed to get home, get something warm to eat and lay down. He'd never had a job before, and it had taken a bit of a toll on him. The caffeine and sugar hadn't done much for him, and now he had bags under his eyes and the blood vessels around his baby blues had reddened to give him a very vampire-like look.

At the too of the stairs, he met Jesse.

"Huh, you actually stayed the night." Jesse appraised him as soon as they came face-to-face. He too, looked tired, but he had his sunglasses in place even in the shady interior of the building. From what he'd heard about the guy, Rory figured he should be great up his head hadn't been bitten off already.

"'Course I did...I just heard something weird by the office." Rory stated sleepily, arms around himself, a little disoriented. "And I was just leaving."

"I came up to catch you before you left." Jesse nodded to him as they both headed for the stairs. "Where's your coat?" He asked as they reached the second floor.

"Didn't bring one." Rory answered sleepily.

"Okay, and where is your car?" The older man asked in a way that implied exactly how much he couldn't believe that Rory was such an idiot.

"Didn't bring one."

"You dunce." Jesse hissed and turned to glare daggers at the blonde from behind his sunglasses. "You'd look like death warmed over, if you weren't shivering! You're actually shivering! If you tried to walk home now, I know an idiot like you would lay down on a park bench or something and fall asleep there, probably for good in this cold."

Hey, you don't look so great yourself!" Rory defended, stepping away from Jesse a little and clenching his arms tighter. His fingers felt like they'd be stuck like that forever, like that time he'd climbed a fifteen-meter ladder to reach the top of an electrical plant with his uncle. He'd had to flex and massage his fingers to get them to bend and straighten like normal.

It was easy to glare daggers back at Jesse, though the elder boy could probably see right through it. The early morning light that the windows of the second floor gave and the way his eyes burned with fatigue made it physically satisfying.

"Well, I have a meeting with the town council this morning. It's not like I volunteered to be up this early!" They continued across the second floor and down another flight of stairs to the first floor. "Unlike you, loser! Wait here while I go and get my car."

"I can walk home just fine." Rory grumbled, and Jesse pretended not to hear him. Once the main door had been shut and locked, Rory took off down the frosty road at a semi-brisk pace, ignoring

Jesse's calls to get his ass back there.

"Thanks but no thanks!" _Rich-kid_ , Rory grumped in his head and yelped as something hard, flexible and cold hit him in the back of the head. It fell to the ground, and when Rory turned to examine the strange object, he seen Jesse hurrying up the hill to where his mansion was, jacket-less and pissed off.

The object lying in the snow was Jesse's leather jacket.

Rory stared down at it, uncomprehendingly. Then, when it was clear that Jesse was indeed going to start his car and drive over to probably haul his ass inside, Rory bent and snatched it up off of the gravel.

He hesitated only a moment before sliding it on, and when he did, blessed warmth sunk onto his now-frigid skin like he'd just sunk into a soothing bath. The inside was as warm as the outside was cold, and although the inside wasn't made of the softest material, he found the texture pleasing in a most basic way. In the pocket, he found a plain black winter hat and slipped it on over his unruly locks and sighed.

He had to ignore the fact that the reason the articles of clothing were so warm was because they'd just been taken off of _Jesse Black_ , or he'd have exploded, blanched in disgust, or probably both. At an alarming rate.

The jacket had a smell to it, like some light, expensive cologne that Rory couldn't and shouldn't have been able to place anyway. He found that he didn't exactly disagree with the scent, either.

But he couldn't just stand there. He had to piss Jesse off even more _somehow_ , so instead he took off down the road, jacket and all. He'd made it almost to the estate boarder when a honk and muffled cursing from directly behind caught his attention more than the almost-silent sound of the engine.

Jesse didn't tell out the window, but instead kept on his ass and honked until Rory turned and climbed into the warm, midnight blue sports car. Contrary to popular belief, not every guy knew about cars. All Rory knew was that this car was sleek, beautiful, ad screamed wealth.

When he got in, instead of being pissed off, Jesse was smirking. Neither said anything, and Rory sat sullenly in the passengers seat, buckled in and not making eye contact with the smug man sitting next to him. Even though Rory was still trying to hang on to some of his dignity, it was obvious who won here- Jesse. The only way Rory could have looked lamer was of he'd come without shoes or pants. As it was, he was wearing a t-shirt and shorts underneath the leather jacket.

"So, where do you live?" Jesse asked as they drove into Whitechapel, through the leaf-littered streets.

"You can drop me off at the corner here, creep." Rory stated. No way was Jesse going to see his home. Even if it wasn't tiny, it wasn't huge either and he'd probably laugh because it didn't have three floors or because he had a yellow jeep parked in the driveway next to his mom's silver SUV.

"Well, you already know where I live." The raven shrugged. "It's only fair. Besides, these doors don't open until I come to a complete stop, and you can either tell me or...I pull up your personal records on my phone."

He held up said phone. Rory stared.

When they pulled up to his house, Rory tried to escape without further embarrassment, but found himself falling flat on his face onto the pavement of his driveway. For a moment, he contemplated just lying there until the ground decided to have mercy and swallow him up.

"Dude." Jesse sounded tired and disbelieving. "You suck."

"Just leave." Rory plead tonelessly, sitting up, wincing at the feeling of rocks digging into his knees. Then he realized something and reached for the zipper on the leather jacket. "Wait, your jacket-"

"Keep it." Jesse cut him off. "Until tonight at least. And hey, remember how I texted you that my mom wanted to give you something?"

"Uh...yeah?" Rory blinked, hands frozen at the. zipper of the jacket.

"Well, she was going to give you food for your troubles, but the clumsy intern Dara went and dropped the bag on the way over to your office." Jesse shrugged. "I guess if you want something done right, you've gotta do it yourself. So, my mom told me to invite you to dinner tonight."

"Oh. Uh...she really didn't have to do that." Rory answered, sitting down on the driveway rather than kneeling on it. The pavement was cold under his hands.

She wanted to invite you herself." Jesse went on. "And believe me, I wanted her to, but she's busy a lot. Anyway..."

Jesse leaned over with a quickness and grace that surprised Rory and slammed the door in place in one easy move. The window rolled down a fraction.

"If you do come, and I'll expect that you will, wear something other than shorts and sandals, will you? Dinner's at seven thirty."

He then pulled out and left Rory sitting in the driveway, wearing his leather jacket. With nothing else to do, Rory stood and walked to his door, only to realize that he'd forgotten the house key. when he left earlier, as it was attached to his jeep key.

Time to see which window his mom had left open.

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 **AN** : So? How was it? xP Good? Bad? Intermediate? How about my video game themed fics? Any requests? I'm kinda on a streak here. BTW, someone please tell me if parts of the story seem to skip mysteriously or if it seems like there's a gap in the plot that wasn't meant to be there- I had some trouble with transferring this chapter from my iPod to a new document. And sorry for this long note, though I appreciate that there are people who seem to read my notes. xx

TOBN, me too bruh! Lol I like watching people being scared xD especially Dan and Phil, if you haven't watched them, you should, they'll make you smile lol and thanks, I almost lost my cool a couple of times xP but I'm going strong. Sort of. I'm doing my best not to lose passion for the fandom, since, you know...no season three. Sucks.

MBAV bro66, I needed a second opinion because my little sister's school sent home a note telling us to set our clocks back last week, but no one else was saying anything, like whaaaaat? lol thanks for clearing that up, it's all very mysterious, especially because I've never kept track of it anyway. And yeah, I don't really like anything with a face that isn't alive lol unless I make it myself (I craft now and then).

So, I'm guessing Rory stories aren't so popular? Or no one reads MBAV fics anymore? :D How am I with the personalities? OOC? I'm not used to writing Rory in such large quantities, though I love him. I love Cameron Kennedy too, he's such a babe lol and he's smart too! Imagine. xxx

Ah well! I'm still here, mostly. ;D Review!

 _Updated 10.07.16 11:46 PM_


	3. Chapter 3

**AN** : So, although I think that this is a bomb story of mine, I seem to have a really small audience ;D but it doesn't upset me, because even if Rory's my baby, I know he's underrated. This story was more of a personal challenge to me than anything, and at the time, Halloween was nearing, and I love Halloween, so why not get inspired? :P

Thank you to TOBN and MBAVfan, you guys are ahhhhhmazing XD so I hope this chapter isn't too boring, but it will quite unorthodox. Nonetheless, it was immensely entertaining for me to write, even if I did struggle with the Black's personalities and family dynamics. Ah well. My struggle to make it good enough is in the chapters word count (10,400) :O

Enjoy!

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Rory fidgeted with the shirt he wore, tugging at the bottom and hunching his shoulders to check out the angles. He wasn't used to wearing polos. They were sort of...Benny's thing. This shirt was Benny's. And he was standing in Benny's bathroom, in front of the mirror.

"Somehow, I don't think this will impress." Rory stated, staring at himself in the slightly steam-covered mirror. He turned around and appraised his profile with confused eyes.

"Honestly, neither do I." Grandma Weir said from her position in the hall. "You don't have the polo look, dear."

"I'm cramping Benny's style." Rory agreed, and proceeded to take off the shirt (folding it the best he could under Grandma Weir's gaze. "I wish I could get into my house. I knew I should've took my keys to work. And my jeep."

"And a jacket." Grandma Weir sighed and walked into the bathroom, swatting Rory on the shoulder as she grabbed Benny's striped shirt and threw it unceremoniously into his bedroom. "You fool, Rory, you could have given yourself pneumonia in this cold."

"Yeah, I've heard that before." Rory cowered against the bathroom wall, arms around his shirtless form. When he'd realized he'd forgotten his keys that morning, he had immediately (and very tiredly) tried to climb in through the laundry room window of his home- but had found said window, and every other ground-floor window, locked. Luckily for him, Benny's grandma had been doing her early morning power-walking, despite the weather and just having gotten home last night.

Benny, however, had decided to go and "check in" on Ethan in their shared dorm at the University in Golden Falls not too far from Whitechapel.

Upon seeing the clueless idiot, Evelyn had asked what the hell he was doing outside without proper clothing, and half ordered, half drug him by the ear over to her house when he explained his situation. After another earful, a mug of hot tea (he'd drank half asleep), and a few more grandmotherly threats, he'd been sent to the guest bedroom to collapse into unconsciousness. It could have went considerably worse- all in all, he was just lucky Grandma Weir was such a health and fitness nut, even at her age.

"You'd so look adorable in one of those turtle-necks you used to wear when you were in middle-school!" Evelyn pinched his cheeks and Rory groaned internally, rubbing at his now red cheeks as she walked away.

"I'd look like the sniveling dork I was before too." Rory grumbled, following the old lady across the hall to raid Benny's closet, which was left mostly bare from when he'd finally moved out. "With a red, runny nose, and an inhaler glued to my hand..."

Rory had to find something within the next hour, or else he'd have to completely bail on the dinner with the Blacks. Not that dressing up was something he was particularly looking forward to- he usually just wore whatever was available, and at the moment, only Benny's clothing was available. Of course, he'd blabbed everything to Evelyn over a light lunch of tomato and carrot soup and grilled cheese sandwiches, and naturally, she'd directed him towards the only teen-boy clothes within reach. That had been almost three hours ago, and Rory had procrastinated hard in that time.

But Jesse had wanted him to wear, well...something other than shorts and plaid. And there was the little problem with being locked out of his house at the moment, and his mom working overtime at the hospital that night. The joys of being a total airhead, he guessed. Now his already slim options had narrowed down to...

Whatever he was looking at.

Gingerly, the blonde picked up another atrocious polo with two pinched fingers. This time, it was orange and had cross-crossing fading green and blue lines. It's not as though Rory was a trend setter (no matter how much he tried to convince everyone that bowler hats and seal-skin sandals were "in" in eleventh grade) but he could see why his friend had left these particular articles of clothing behind.

"Well, I guess it's drop-dead-geek stripes and ripped skinny jeans, eh Grandma?" Rory jabbed, elbowing the short woman lightly, grinning at the squinting glare she shot him. "Kinda emo for a college kid, but at least they're not kakis, right?"

The elder lady looked back towards the hall, and waved him off nodding. She began walking towards the stairs with purpose, a brighter look about her. Of course, Rory dropped onto Benny's creaky bed once her back was turned and sprawled out, unsure of what to do next. He couldn't very well shame himself by wearing that orange monstrosity...but what were his options?

The only shoes he had were blue converse, and that was about the only thing he knew for sure he'd be wearing. He _could_ wear the same clothes he'd worn the night before, but he doubted that would impress them, and he needed the money probably more than he needed his personal comfort. Not to mention, Grandma would swat him with a rolled up _WITCHES WEEKLY_ magazine if he so much as voiced the idea.

"Not a good one." Rory whispered to himself, placing his hands behind his head to stare at the mapped constellations on Benny's ceiling. "Not a good idea."

It wasn't fun listening to that voice in the back of his mind that coached him on what was 'socially accepted" and what was "social suicide". It might almost be worth wearing dirty clothes just to see Jesse's reaction! Quickly, the blonde dismissed the idea with a pout. No fun equals propriety.

Sigh.

The moment he heard footsteps in the hallway, the blonde pulled the comforter over himself and waited for the word-lashing he'd probably receive. But no harsh words came, in fact, the footsteps stopped in front of the door and another set of footsteps continued into the room. This person's footsteps made clicks as they crossed from the carpet in the hall to the wood of Benny's wood floors.

"I called in backup, Rory." Evelyn's voice was slightly teasing and considerably more gentle than it had been before. "Brace yourself."

Rory peeked over the comforter and sat up jovially once he caught sight of the mocha skin and long ebony locks. He gave the girl a huge smile. "Sarah!"

"Hey Rory!" Sarah smiled at him, and Grandma left him in the female's capable hands. "I heard you got a government job."

"Well, kinda." Rory nodded, staring like an idiot, as he hadn't seen Sarah in about four months or so, since the last time she'd come to Ethan's for a visit. And the last time he'd talked to her had been well over three weeks ago via group-video chat with Benny, Ethan, and Erika.

She and Erika both were studying at the same university that the trio of boys were now enrolled in. Benny was closer to Sarah than he was, Ethan even closer than any of them to the brunet girl, maybe even closer to her than Erika. They'd dated, after all, over the past summer, but had split, on good terms.

"I'm meeting with Erika in an hour for dinner, but I can stay until then." Sarah smiled at him and sat on the bed.

"Sarah, I have to be at a dinner with rich people in less than an hour, and I'm locked out of my house. So I have no clothes, no car and no dignity, essentially." Rory's blue eyes were open and earnest, and he reached out to grasp her slender arms lightly. "And Benny's leftover clothes are a fashion disaster of I've ever seen one, and I'm a dude."

"It can't be that bad..." Sarah hesitated, and then patted his arm sheepishly. "Well, maybe it can be that bad. But we'll think of something! He has to have some kind of solid colors somewhere...some jacket or dress shirt."

"I hate buttons." Rory admitted. "And slacks. Whatever those shiny slippers are too, they look weird. These are the only shoes I have." Rory pointed to his blue converse shoes at the end of Benny's bed.

"Well, some kind of jacket is a _must_." Sarah stated firmly, looking just like the lawyer she aspired to be, in her soft blazer, scarf, jeans and heeled boots. She stood up and crossed the room to Benny's closet. "Let's see what we have and-"

"See?" Rory muttered, sitting back on the bed, piling pillows behind him. "What did I tell you?"

"How did Benny survive high school?" Sarah murmured, shaking her head. With a sigh, she began pulling articles of clothing from the drawers and rifling through shirts that hung in front of her.

"I think maybe I should skip the dinner." Rory said after a minute or so. "It'll last maybe a half an hour, right? What am I supposed to do afterwards? I'll have three hours or more to kill, and I don't even have my jeep to lay around in."

"Maybe..." Sarah paused. "Well, Jesse doesn't seem like a very social person, does he? Anymore, I mean."

"I dunno." Rory shrugged. It was weird talking to Sarah one-on-one like this. "I've only seen him a few times."

If he remembered correctly, Sarah used to have a crush on him. A big one.

"Well...I may have found something." Sarah held up a cream-colored shirt that Rory didn't remember ever seeing Benny in, and a gray jacket that wasn't too dark nor was it a washed out- color.

"That would have been the best thing Benny ever wore." Rory appraised the clothing, unruffled from being in the closet for so long. "If I'd ever actually seen him wear it."

"I think the shirt is probably Ethan's." Sarah said, flipping the shirt around, checking for stains. "Maybe something he gave Benny that he couldn't fit. It's not Benny's style, but his length for sure. Yours too, maybe...if not a little long."

Rory stood at her beckoning and she held up the shirt to his bare chest. Suddenly realizing that he was over half-naked in front of a really hot girl, Rory first froze, and then realized Sarah had seen him in various states of undress over the years. He relaxed and chimed in now and again as she tried to match him up with some of a the clothes Benny had in the very back of his closet.

"He _would_ have left all of his nice clothes at home." Sarah sighed, lifted up a pair of black pants but discarded them to the rejects pile. "I think I seen him dress nice like three times, and even those we're pushing it."

"Agreed. You've got to admit, though, Benny has a style all his own."

"It sure is all his own, because no one else would dress that geeky." Sarah glanced at Rory over her shoulder, a giggle hiding behind her lips. "Am I right, Rory?"

"Totally." Rory smiled at her and Sarah did giggle then, holding up a pair of grey pants that didn't look like they'd be too big or particularly small on him. He preferred a little extra material by his feet anyway, so they didn't look like capris when he bent his knees.

"What do you think?"

"I think it's just after seven and I have less than half an hour to be at their massive doorstep." Rory nodded and then stood to begin pulling the grey pants on.

"Right." Sarah appraised him, probably thinking that his (borrowed, and Rory was mildly nauseous about that fact) bright green boxers didn't match his outfit at all. Then she headed out of the room with purpose, heeled boots clicking the same way they did when she arrived. "I'll get the blow drier and comb!"

Rory, who'd never blow dried his hair in years, cringed and imagined himself arriving at Jesse's mansion with huge disco hair.

.

.

It wasn't disco hair that had ended up causing the problem. The jacket did little to break the wind, nor protect his ears and face, so he would still cold when he walked up to the front steps of the mansion. Right now, though, he was toasty and satisfied riding in Sarah's blood red convertible.

"Oh my god, Rory, maybe you need someone to stay with you." Sarah looked disturbed by his description of the warehouse and it's "resident's" so far. "Especially tonight! They open the Haunted House tonight, and who knows what kind of freaks will be showing up from the surrounding towns."

"I'm pretty sure I'll be fine." Rory reassured her. "They've got cameras anywhere. I'm pretty sure I can back into the scare cams too if I wanted. They've got really good cameras set up in the haunted house parts of the building, night vision."

"Well, I still don't feel good about those robots you were talking about." Sarah shuddered. "They sound like nothing but trouble to me. Who's idea was it to create big hulking metal monsters for the amusement of children anyway?!"

"Well..."

"They're _creepy_ , not to mention dangerous!" Sarah cut him off, and seemed to be getting more and more agitated by the second. "I can't believe they had to hire someone to watch them at night! How terrifying! What if they go crazy? Or explode?"

"I've looked at their programming." Rory waved her off. "Or, their motors and basic frames, at least. They won't explode, they're not old or rusty enough for it."

"Maybe I should come and check on you later..."

Rory wanted to ask teasingly if maybe she hadn't quite gotten over her thing for a certain black-haired snob, but was struck with one of those rare instances when he knew better than to voice his thoughts. It would only insult the brunet, maybe even upset her enough for her to punch him-although he hadn't seen Sarah get violent with anyone in a long time. Not since that incident a couple of years ago when she'd repeatedly hit a pair of stupid jocks for trying to shove Ethan into the girl's locker-room. When he thought "violence" the dark-skinned beauty next to him just didn't come to mind. Erika, definitely but not Sarah.

"I think I'll be fine, Sarah." Rory gave her his best smile. "I'm a big boy now, I'm enrolled in college. I can take care of myself."

"Evidently." Sarah deadpanned. "As shown when you forgot a coat in this kind of weather and then locked yourself out of your house and car."

"Hey, I made it through the day alright! You and Benny's grandma had my back!" They were pulling up to the mansion's wrought iron gates now and Sarah drove him up to where a loop in the path passed right by the front doors.

"This place is beautiful." Sarah gazed around at the mansion and the grounds.

'Eh, tacky.' Rory wanted to say, but again decided to keep it to himself.

"Do you think they'll throw me out for not coming in a suit and tie?" Rory inquired absently. Really, he didn't care a whole lot about what other people thought about him. Well, most people, anyway. He looked down at himself- grey jacket, cream shirt, grey pants and blue shoes.

"You look great! Trust me." Sarah looked him over. "Surprising, actually. Mrs. Weir thought we'd have to send you over in suspenders and pinstriped pants. Wait a second!"

Sarah looked as though she'd been struck with the idea of the century and reached inside of her jacket to pull out what Rory had initially mistaken to be a hoodie. In a moment, she held a simple blue scarf, not unlike the color he knew his eyes to be. Likewise, almost the exact color of his shoes.

"I won't look stupid?" Rory asked as she wrapped the scarf around his neck. Simple, soft material, not too light or thick. He glanced at his watch- he was a few minutes early, more like nine minutes early. But he'd heard many times that it was polite to show up a bit early.

"Not at all." Sarah's look was one of pride if Rory had ever seen it. "Oh! Before you go, do you need a ride home?" She asked before Rory stepped out of her car. She tugged him back in by a loop in his pants. Luckily, he was wearing a belt as well.

"That would be great!" Rory exclaimed, nodding. "If you're done with your business with Erika in an hour or so as well, think you could you swing by? Or else I'll have hours to kill by myself."

"Yeah, we should be done by then, maybe we could go and check out the haunted house ourself." She nodded. "Have fun, or try to at least." Sarah gave him a last, sweet smile and then he was stepping out of her car that was a pretty as she was, and heading up the fancy steps of the mansion's front porch.

Decisions, decisions. Should he use the elegant door-knockers, the softly lit doorbell button, or should he just knock? Would one way or another make him look sophisticated?

Holding in his mad urge to knock, ring the bell, and shout simultaneously, Rory reached out with a reluctant hand and pushed the circular button. He resolved to himself that he would wait seventeen seconds before ringing it again (in case no one heard it the first time).

Luckily for them (or maybe him) it was only thirteen seconds later that a man answered the door. He was tall, built, dark skinned, and his curly hair was long enough to be pulled into a short ponytail at the base of his neck. He loomed over Rory for a moment and then nodded as he stepped aside.

"Rory Keaner?"

"Yeah, hi."

"Mrs. Black has been expecting you." The man motioned him in and Rory was met with the same open area he'd seen for the first time two short days before. There were wide-set mahogany stairs more than a few meters in front of him, carpeted down the center with a light grey carpet, and on the second level of the home it leveled to a platform, which made a "T" with two more staircases going up. This man, whoever he was, was leading Rory to the left, through an arched doorway.

Said man had some sort of a bandana in his hair, Rory noted. A bandana that was red but made mostly of what appeared to be mesh. Maybe he was a cook as well? He didn't have an apron on, or any sort of indication other than the bandana that he would be doing anything other than answering doors. Rich people were weird...

When Rory, led by the servant, or whatever he was, reached a big room with a long rectangular table like those you see in movies, he was told to sit and left behind. Besides the plates, goblets, napkins and silverware set at five places along the table, the clothed table was unoccupied. Rory set himself on the right, at the chair furthest away from the end. It was minutes before he heard any other activity from the home, and he busied himself with gawking at the chandelier, practicing sitting up straight, and trying to make a crane out of the crisp cloth napkin in front of him.

It was seven twenty-five when the man from before reappeared. He first straightened a few forks and knives around the table, then straightened the white table cloth before sitting himself down directly across from Rory. He was intimidating to be sure- all muscle, dark eyes and sharp angles, and he didn't look particularly interested to be there. In fact, his expression might have made Rory think that he wasn't all that thrilled to be having dinner with the Blacks. Before Rory could say hello himself, however, the man spoke.

"So, you must be this Keaner kid I've been hearing about." His voice deep, but not overly so- a voice that didn't quite match his image. He pulled out a white rubber band from his unruly hair, which sprang free and coiled around his face.

"Yeah, I guess so. I'm Rory. The guy who's going to be watching the warehouse for the next four nights." Rory nodded and reached to hold out a hand only to set it back down under the table, realizing his arm wasn't long enough to stretch the five foot length of the table to shake the other male's hand. He slumped in his chair a little before straightening up.

"Gord." The man nodded, looking tired. "I'm a friend of Jesse's, and an employee."

"Nice. I think I remember you from high school." Rory tilted his head suddenly, as though remembering something.

"Come to mention it, I think I remember you too." Gord sighed. "Weren't you the one who was friends with that guy who cried every time one of his science projects was taken away?"

"Well...Ethan's a special case." Rory pressed his lips together. Being known by one of Jesse's cool friends for Ethan's emotional breakdowns wasn't exactly something to be proud about.

"I remember the other g- uh, friend of yours too." Gord smiled a bit, but at the same time, it was a grimace. "I think I might have beat him up once or twice. Sorry about that."

"We all make mistakes." Rory muttered, though inside, he was indeed a bit put out by the fact that his best friends had been bullied in high school. He himself hadn't seemed to have been on the list of geeks to be bullied, probably because he didn't try to stir things up in school like Ethan and Benny had tried to do. The most he'd done to irk the popular kids was that time he'd "accidentally" left a container of orange paint atop one of the school's side-entrance doors and one of Jesse's friends had gotten a face (and a mouth and chest) full of the stuff. They'd never been able to prove that was him, though.

A moment after Rory's musings, a group of people dressed in aprons, dress clothes, hairnets and gloves, almost like Gord had been when he'd come to greet Rory at the front doors. They came with trays full of drinks and covered platters of food, which they set around the end of the table that the two males were occupying.

A couple of minutes into the arranging of the table, a man dressed in a business suit talking on a phone walked into the room. He barely glanced up at Rory and then sat at the glorious head of the table, gesturing almost immediately for wine to be poured into his glass. Needless to say, Rory gathered who he was within the first two seconds he saw him, and began to regret ever coming. This man looked like he ate blonde college students like him for breakfast.

He had a dark, no-nonsense aura about him, not unlike Jesse's, and what seemed to be permanent stress lines around his mouth and eyes. Despite this, he had short, slicked-back hair with a few silvery strands and a timeless face. On his left hand, he wore a simple gold wedding band, and next to it, on his middle finger, a silver ring adorned with what must have been the Black family crest.

Seeing the intimidating man made Rory wonder what Jesse's mother looked like. He wondered if she too, would be intimidating. Another minute and he would get his answer- a clicking that was familiar to Rory's ears approached from the same door that Jesse's father had entered through.

She was around Rory's height, maybe just a bit shorter, with raven hair drawn into a soft bun and dressed elegantly in a simple lavender dress. When she came around the table, Rory saw that the low heels she wore were white. She was young, or at least, young _looking_ , with not a wrinkle nor gray hair marring her image, and could have passed for Jesse's older sister instead of his mother. The most surprising thing, though, was the small smile she gave him when she saw him that was fatigued but seemingly genuine- that, and the fact that she was walking around the table to greet him.

"Hello, you must be Mrs. Black!" Rory greeted, bright and friendly but trying to tone down his usual enthusiasm, as to not hurt or offend this beautiful lady. "I'm Rory Keaner, the volunteer security tech for your warehouse."

He had imagined the lady of the Black family to be superficially attractive and colorful with makeup and gaudy clothing. This faerie woman, however was small and pale as they came, in a lovely shade not unlike Jesse's, and free of any obvious makeup, save a subtle shimmer to her eyelids or any visible cosmetic surgeries.

"Very pleased to meet you, Mr. Keaner." She gave him a radiant smile. "My name is Valana Black, I'm Jesse's mother. Now, the first thing I want to say is thank you so, so much for coming in at such a late notice, we were...um, getting a little worried for a few days before you showed up."

"Oh, it's no trouble at all." Rory smiled and took her hand when she offered it, tempted to try and kiss the silky skin but was struck by another odd moment of self-awareness that told him it would be kind of out of place for someone as young as he was. He would probably only creep her out (wince). So he just shook it and sat down as she took a seat right next to him, at the closest seat to the head of the table.

"We'll talk more once we're settled. Have some wine, won't you? Best in our stores."

"Sure, thanks." Rory nodded and smiled politely (not creepily, he hoped) and only just sipped at the sweet, heady wine presented to him.

While food and more wine was served, and Rory twiddled his thumbs, listening idly to the clinking of dinnerware and the deep tones of Jesse's father talking on his cellphone. Gord, across from him, seemed almost equally as uncomfortable as he himself was. Though he may have hidden it better.

Rory would be more comfortable playing bumper cars with the shining forks and spoons decorating the mat in front of him, but it wasn't "appropriate" dinner manners, especially in front of the intimidating man and the faerie lady. Besides, he didn't know where to start...there were like three forks and two spoons and two knives, what the hell?

He hadn't realized he'd spoken the last few words out loud until Jesse's mother, Valana, gave him a scandalous look and whispered "Please, not at the table, dear." Rory's ears had reddened and he hung his head just a bit from his practiced ram-rod straight posture. Any and all teenage-boy ideas Rory was rarely struck with had just deteriorated with those simple words. Not only had he made a potential fool of himself, but Mrs. Black had also sounded too much like his own mother for him to conjure anything but platonic feelings.

So he waited as food was arranged and half of the staff backed off (half being three people) until only three servants were left to place small plates of salad in front of each of the chairs.

It was green, leafy, and was decorated with what appeared to a kind of red dried berries, sunflower seeds, and an odd white paste. On the other side of the plate was a tiny glass thing that appeared to be a miniature pitcher or measuring cup, filled with a tiny amount of an opaque, pink liquid with flecks of red and black in it.

"It is cranberries, sunflower seeds and goat cheese, Mr. Keaner." A deep voice said from directly behind him, and Rory had been so preoccupied with the odd sight in front of him that he'd failed to notice the lack of Mr. Black's voice filling the room. He jumped, startled.

"We wouldn't serve you anything foul, my boy, you're a guest after all." Mr. Black's voice was deep and rich, quite the contrast to Jesse's higher-pitched voice (he tended to speak for his nose, Rory noticed). But the similarities were striking, even more so than the ones between Jesse and his mother, and Rory knew this was what Jesse would probably look like in a decade or so as well. "In the small glass is a seasoned dressing oil that you might pour over your salad. It's a blend of our homemade Italian and grape seed."

"Um...yes, sir." Rory stood and shook the man's hand firmly, trying not to let on that he was shaking in his shoes. He suddenly felt very underdressed, and remembered in a brief hot flash that this was the mayor he was talking to.

"It's a, a privilege to be having dinner with you and your family, Mr. Mayor." Rory tried to sound as sincere as possible, but he could tell he was stumbling over his words. Mr. Black didn't openly smile, but to his relief, his expression seemed to soften a fraction, and the lift of his lips that was ALMOST a smile set Rory at ease a bit.

"Horace Black, Mr. Keaner, you may know me as the Mayor of Whitechapel. The pleasure is completely ours, I assure you. I hear you're the reason our holiday event has gone as well as it has so far." The tall man turned after shaking Rory's hand firmly and took his seat once again. "If seems we were very lucky that you decided to volunteer your help. Jesse tells me everything's been running smoother than it's been in years."

"Well, I sure hope so. I put enough time and wire into it." Rory said before he could stop himself, and tensed up automatically. However, Mr. Black only raised a no aggressive eyebrow and sipped his wine; Mrs. Black looked oddly pleased.

"Told you he was a catch, didn't I?" A new voice came from across the room, and Rory was struck by the sight of a pajama-clad Jesse walking into the room. The dark-haired man made a face as he adjusted his sunglasses and then sighed. He put the tinted spectacles on a passing waiter' stray and took a seat on the other end of the table near his father, and directly across from his mother.

"Jesse, is this any way to appear in front of our guest?" His mother sighed and Jesse shrugged.

"I went to high school with him, mom. I'm sure he's seen me at my worst." Jesse muttered and downed half a glass of the sweet alcohol filling his glass in one swallow. "I hate weekdays."

"For goodness sake." Mrs. Black sighed and her husband just looked tired.

"I've had a rough day." Jesse looked up. Indeed, it did look like the man had gone ten rounds with a vampire (wherever that scenario came from) and had still lost in the end. "The Council is still denying my appeal, and this is the third time I've brought it up."

"Now, we're not talking about this, boys." Valana stated firmly. "But if we were, I would mention that it was you who wanted the responsibility in the first place, Jesse."

"It's that idiot Eric, I know it is."

"If memory serves me correctly, I seem to recall telling you not to let the incompetence of fools hinder you even a little." Mr. Black lifted a slim forkful of greens to his lips.

"I was attempting to have good relations." Jesse sighed, irately. "As you also said, father."

"It doesn't work out that way sometimes, son." Jesse's mother sighed as well. "But enough about that, there's all the time in the world to argue over it later. Right now, I'd like to hear the progress our attraction is making." She looked to Rory then. "Jesse keeps me informed on your progress, Mr. Keaner. I understand you ran into a few...problems in the warehouse we were unaware of."

"Well, I suppose." Rory answered absently, distracted by his salad. He poked at it with he same fork he knew Gord to currently be using, and then stabbed a few leafy pieces of spinach with nuts and goat cheese. He contemplated for a moment. "Common problems. Neglect to dust and clean panels, coffee spilled in keyboards...field mice in the walls, some of the wires had been completely chewed through."

"Mice?" Mrs. Black recoiled and a distinct look of distaste came across her husband's face.

"Might I suggest poison?" The man asked, sounding tired, and before Rory could answer, Jesse chimed in.

"I suggested it as well, but he wouldn't have it." Jesse took most of his salad in one bite and Rory struggled not to make a face. He guessed he ended up just looking stupid anyway.

"Uh, yeah." The blonde nodded. "No, rat poison is a bad idea in any case, but this one especially. You know how children and teenagers can be, poking around everything, every chance they get. Don't want anyone being poisoned accidentally. Discreet traps are a lot safer."

He took a bite of his salad, and then decided it would be much better with a little of the strange oil in the cup in front of him. He took it gingerly by the small handle and poured maybe a little more than strictly necessary.

"Good point." Mr. Black sighed.

"It has fallen into some disrepair...as to be expected." Rory shrugged noncommittally. "For a warehouse as big as it is, it's a lot less complicated than I thought it would be. Things could be a lot worse for sure. The main thing is the mice, they're destroying the insides of the walls- but then again, that should be fixed up pretty soon now, I set like twenty traps."

"Right, so about the wires." Mr. Black asked, and a few waiters bustled around the table with tiny bowls of something murky and orange. "This connection problem you and Jesse were talking about. How is this fixed? Replacements?"

"Most of them should be fine. I patched them up temporarily, but eventually, they'll need a lot more than electrical tape and pins. The majority of the damage can be replaced easily, but at the moment I was assessing it, I didn't have the equipment with me."

"I see." Was all Jesse's father said, but he didn't seem angry. It was almost as though he were expecting it to be a lot worse than it was. Rory took a sip of whatever was in the bowl with a spoon that looked more like a ladle and flinched a bit. It was hot, almost scathingly so.

"You sound very capable, Mr. Keaner." Mrs. Black smiled at him. "I'm glad. Do you have anything else to report? Anything about our troublesome robots? Regrettably, they were my idea, and at my family's insistence, I've been thinking of throwing them away altogether."

"Trust me, Mrs. Black, it would be a crime to throw them away!" Rory enthused, and took a small bite of his salad, ready to launch into his discoveries of the automatons. "They have so much potential!"

"An explaination please? Those filthy robots have been nothing but trouble since we started production of the Haunted House and I'd like to know if we can afford to keep them around." Jesse's father asked just before he finished his salad and Rory nodded and took a large last bite of his food, taking a moment to swallow a large spoonful of what he was now sure was carrot soup or something. He ignored the look Gord gave him over the table and turned to the two authority figures.

"Well, firstly, they're only filthy on the outside, sir." Rory said earnestly. "Inside, sure they're dusty, but almost perfect. They're a beautiful display of modern machinery, but they have a few um...glitches, let's say..."

"Oh yes? A glitch or two would explain the damage done to our previous technician." A new prepared plate of steak, potatoes, steamed vegetables, and a dinner roll appeared in front of him. He lifted the tiny bowl to his lips and gulped the last of it down before handing it off to the waiter- not catching Jesse's raised eyebrow directed at him. He said a quick thanks to the server and turned back to his previous conversation.

"It's not their fault." Rory murmured.

"No, I'm sure the robots don't care who they maul, but what I want to know is whether or not they're safe to keep."

"I haven't determined whether or not they're an actual threat to anyone's life yet." Rory slouched a little in his seat, wishing he had more answers to give. "I've heard the claims from this previous technician through Jesse, but far I've seen nothing to claim or disclaim them as a danger. I've only ever witnessed an automaton move once, and I didn't even see it. It's just that it was standing outside the door of the office I'm staying in, where it wasn't before."

"I see." Both of Jesse's parents were giving Rory very serious looks. It was Jesse's father who spoke. "Have you any other information for us? Are you sure you'll be able to handle being up there all alone at night? I know you said you haven't witnessed the automatons moving, but it doesn't change the fact that our last technician was, er...injured.."

"Concerning that, I do have a little news, and a theory or two..." Rory stabbed at his mashed potatoes, wondering how exactly to word the subject. "I looked over the file- uh, you know, the _complaint_ , sent in by the guy, totally out of line, by the way. His face will heal up fine, and he did sign a waver, didn't he? Anyway, I looked into the Bonnie robot last night..."

"Well...you got them from an abandoned children's restaurant chain, right?" Rory tried to choose his next words carefully. He didn't want the Blacks to immediately banish the robots, and he didn't want to sound crazy. "The machinery inside them is completely amazing, and considering the time they've spent in storage, they're really clean and less damaged than what I'd have expected. These problems didn't turn up until the tech guy actually opened them up and turned them on, right?"

"Right." Jesse's mother nodded.

Rory went on. "The best I can gather is that the automatons were never given a proper night mode. They were children's entertainment toys, see? So when they were actually in use at Freddy Fazbear's Pizzaria, they would just be left alone at night, without anyone to watch over them. This leads to my first theory- that they're probably attracted to motion and sound, since that's all they see and hear from the kids during the day..."

Everyone was staring at him and Rory tried not to slink further into his seat.

"Um...everyone following me?" Rory asked in a small voice.

"Sure." Jesse butted into what was previously a conversation between his parents and Rory. The raven-haired man sliced a bit of steak off of his cut gracefully. "Please continue."

"I...I have a theory as to why your other guy ended up with his head stuck in an electric jack-o-lantern." Rory squirmed a bit under all three Black's gazes (and Gord's). "It may be because- well, I don't have any real authority to say this, because I didn't program them, and don't know exactly how they operate- uh, anyway...when they do see a person during the period of usual inactivity, like during the night...they may see said person as another automaton walking around without it's exoskeleton..."

"Exoskeleton? Come again?" Mr. Black cocked his head as though he didn't hear it correctly.

"The painted metal on the outside, sir." Rory explained. "There are two parts of the robots, the endo and exoskeletons. The basic frames and structure on the inside, which is the endoskeleton, and the painted, designed metal on the outside that covers the frame and wires and makes it pretty. These robots may see a roaming human during the night as a fellow robot without its armor on, so to say. They may just be trying to help each other out."

"That's disturbing to say the least." Jesse looked at Rory through dark sunglasses and Rory itched to make a comment.

"Don't worry!" Rory beamed at them all. "I can reason with them! In theory...well, more like I can trick them if it actually comes to it and they want to stuff me into an empty character suit- which typically wouldn't be a problem, except for the fact that those things have wires and metallic frames jutting out of them. "

'That would be seriously painful to get out of if it didn't kill you first.' Was what Rory thought but didn't say. The Blacks were looking disturbed enough.

"Maybe we should just get rid of them altogether before the event tonight..." Mrs. Black sounded nervous as she glanced at her husband.

"Oh, no, it'll be fine!" Rory held up his hands. "I'm investing a little in the safety of it all, trust me. It'll be completely fine! I just need to run and get a few things before the night begins, that's all!"

"If you're sure..." Mr. Black gave him a look that made sweat head on Rory's forehead. "We don't want you getting hurt like the last one, boy. I'm trusting you with this, please don't make me regret it."

Rory wanted to say that he would pay back the expenses for anything that he broke, but he was half sure that he'd be working until he was dead just to pay off the tile of the flooring.

"Of course, sir!" Rory smiled at him and nodded enthusiastically. "If it comes down to it, you won't need to worry about getting rid of them. I'll just...wipe them clean."

As much as it would pain him. For legal reasons, (yawn) he would have to.

"Jesse needs this fundraiser to go smoothly, dear." Mrs. Black smiled at him earnestly and reached to pat his arm. She still looked a bit nervous. "Be sure that no harm comes to the customers, please, or to yourself, of course." She smiled truly radiantly, then. "What we do without you?"

Rory was completely taken with the beautiful, dark, faerie lady and was sure that stars must have sparkled in his eyes as Jesse's mother laughed lightly, and Mr. Black gave the smallest of smiles. Not surprised in the least...as though it was a given that his wife would charm every and any guest (and truth being told, she probably did). Every negative thought of the lady involving her wealth flew out the glorious stained-glass windows and lodged themselves between the piles of pumpkins outback.

Rich people had the power to make people fall in love. That was it, it had to be.

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"Thanks again, Mrs. Black." Rory thanked the woman again and waved as she smiled and sped off in her red sports car to wherever rich people went in their free time. The mayor had left fifteen minutes earlier, before they'd finished with their dinner, pointing with a tired look to his cellphone.

Dinner went relatively smoothly from the time Rory had stopped giving them his assessment of the automatons. Business and the mayor's duties were discussed, as was Mrs. Black's companies in a nearby town. Jesse's college experiences the precious year were brought up, but the young man had just sipped his wine and refused to speak one word of it, and had soon gone on to comment on how corrupt and incompetent the council was.

For all his efforts to repair the council to it's former glory (apparently) they would have hide nor tail to do with the angry young man. Rory thought personally that if Jesse were ever to actually make a breakthrough with the council, it would be more of a dictatorship than anything else.

In the present moment, Rory was being shown out by Gord. The man's hair was tied back again, and personally, Rory thought he looked a lot better that way.

When he spoke these thoughts, the older man only chuckled briefly and nodded.

"You're not to first one to think so."

"Hey, how did you end up working for the Black's anyway? You don't seem like the stuffy type that would work in a mansion." Rory asked suddenly, speaking his mind for one of the first times that night. He decided that he could be himself around Gord without being shunned from the mansion, or he just didn't care anymore, with Jesse's beautiful mother out of sight. Whatever.

"Trust me, I'm not." Gord smiled sardonically. "Well, I wasn't anyway...but almost two years ago, I got some pressing news that called for an immediate and high-paying job. Jesse hooked me up."

"Really?" Rory blinked, and thought back to mere hours ago when Jesse had first gave him hell for not bringing a car, then let him wear his jacket and gave him a ride home. Still, the guy seemed really cold. Still seemed like the jackass from high school, if more mature due to being in a semi-professional setting.

Gord, evidently, could read his face like a map.

"Yeah, that's what I thought too. Jesse can be a real jerk, and so can I, but...when you're friends." Gord shrugged. "He came through for me, even when he had to arrange for my job himself. I owe him a lot."

With a tight smile, the dark-skinned, former football player nodded and turned to head back inside. Rory shook himself out of a confused stupor (like could Jesse really be not as big of an ass as he, Benny, and Ethan had always thought?!) and called to him.

"So, what was the pressing news that you got? That made Jesse get the job for you?" Rory dared to ask. Gord turned around just slightly and smiled a little.

"My daughter was born."

And Rory was still trying to process that when a scowling rich boy came strolling onto the porch to stand in front of him.

"I see you still haven't brought a car with you."

"I...uh..." Rory didn't exactly process the snide comment as he was still too busy trying to accept that he may have been wrong about Jesse Black for years. Could he really be more kind than he came off as? He'd proven himself to be silver-tongued and way more intelligent than Rory thought just over _dinner conversation_...

"Geek, I'm talking to you." Elegant fingers snapped in front of his eyes and Rory blinked. A cold wind went by and made him shiver. Jesse's scowl deepened.

"So now your ignoring me too, huh? After I loaned you my jacket so you wouldn't catch pneumonia. I still expect it to be returned, by the way."

"Uh...jacket. Yeah! Of course!" Rory smiled brightly. "It's at the Weir's place! I'll give it back, I promise!"

"You know, I think I remember her. Maybe." Jesse eyed Rory with sudden distaste. "Your friend, Bentley or whatever, looked at me weird so I tried pushing him into the creek near Floral Bridge and she chased me away with a gardening hoe."

"His name is Benny, and well, yeah, he's her grandson..." Rory shrugged, and looked up at Jesse, who was quite a few inches taller than he was. "And he'd just finished an important lab project, and he was carrying it in his arms."

"Old bat." Was Jesse's muttered reply.

"Benny probably would have cried if that thing went into the river."

"He would have gotten over it."

"And the current was really strong that week."

"He must have known how to swim."

Rory 'hmm'd and saw what appeared to be headlights entering the Black manor- not that it was surprising; people were showing up already for the Haunted House and scary maze challenge. He bet more than one person would end up calling the cops that night; it wouldn't have surprised him one bit.

"So, your mom told you to come and check on me later." Rory started, then held up his hands. "Which you really don't need to do, by the way, and you really shouldn't, because I wouldn't want you getting hurt or anything."

"You think I can't take care of myself just because I'm rich and strikingly charming?" Jesse smirked, and Rory was torn between wanting to laugh and wanting to punch the man for his arrogance. "Get real."

Rory found himself neither laughing nor punching the infuriating face in front of him. The asshat wasn't _wrong_... An intimidating, calm aura about him and a lithe, dangerous figure like his father-with all the grace, and elegance of his mother. Jesse was a specimen to behold, Rory would admit. Rich, easy on the eyes, intelligent (the top of his class in high school, apparently, and in detention every week as well) and did he mention rich, on top of it all? _Maybe_ kind-hearted too, somewhere under all of that ice and sarcasm?

Where was the justice? Rory mentally sulked.

"Hey, what are you _sulking_ about?" Jesse asked rudely, and when Rory didn't answer, he got in his face and the blonde flinched back, not knowing what to expect. But Jesse just looked at him, and for a moment, Rory could do nothing but take in what a fascinating shade of blue the raven's eyes were. He'd always thought his own blue eyes were nothing special to look at-faded and washed out in an ugly way, but Jesse's were nothing like his. In fact, nothing about Jesse resembled Rory at all-

Rory blinked as Jesse reached up and carefully pushed Rory's big, awkward glasses up his nose to settle centered in front of his eyes. The blonde hadn't noticed they were slipping. Jesse then made a face and ' _hn_ 'd before straightening up and heading back inside the mansion just as headlights could be seen pulling up to the driveway.

"Don't catch a cold."

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The digital clock read **3:28 AM**.

Rory was comfortable and well-entertained with his hand-held and laptop up in his security office, but still getting tired. There was only so much one person could take of zombie-ninjas and flying ghost pizza's after all- even someone like him. After playing a few rounds of chess with his iPhone, and then some against himself, he played scrabble against himself and then tried making a flock of paper cranes like he's learned in art class that one year, but they only ended up looking like weird pyramids with pine trees at the bottom.

Rory checked through the security cams once again, as he has been doing for the past five, almost six, hours. Nothing unusual had been going on; all the attraction-goers were screaming fearfully, or laughing hysterically, but that was only to be expected, and the event was in full most interesting thing that had gone on by far was one instance a couple of hours ago, when a redheaded man had choked on his gum while inhaling to scream.

At first, Rory wasn't sure if it was just a joke for the hidden cameras and scoffed, but then realized the cameras were _hidden_ , and it looked like he was actually dying, and Rory was about to get up and like, call the police or something, when an actor in a werewolf costume began giving the hemlock thrust or whatever it was called to the man choking. A huge wad of gum flew to the floor at high velocity, and that was all Rory, slack-jawed, had time to witness before the camera began it's slow swivel in the other direction.

All in all, the fifteen cameras had a pretty good view of the entire attraction. The line was long and refused to slow down, the hallways, though littered with props and hidden actors, were large and easily observed, and everyone looked to be having a very terrifying time. Some people had cried, but he supposed the spooky but safe adventure and big bag of candy at the end were well worth it.

Rory had never had much enthusiasm for Halloween fun houses, ever since Easter Sunday when he was eight. It wasn't something he liked to talk about, but involved accidentally walking into a broom closet where the Easter bunny was getting changed into costume. Of course, he loved bunnies in general, real ones, but something about the bucked teeth you could land a plane on, the sharp whiskers and the overly joyful (or sadistic) smile didn't do it for him. It still gave him shudders thinking about it.

Something kept bothering him, though. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't get the security camera in the basement storage area to work, and the door was locked, so he couldn't get in, and he'd forgotten to ask Jesse. It wasn't a problem with the wiring or the system itself, but still kept reading "Error". Normally, this wouldn't be a big problem- it was locked, and should have been safe, right? But with all these people around, only one guard (not that he doubted his skills) and not enough cameras outside of the building, he would need to keep surveillance on that room. He'd been told by Dara that the Black's kept all of their expensive electric and raw material for reparations or future projects, and it also housed valuable art and furniture that needed to be kept clean and safe. That room needed to be closely looked after, especially since Jesse had told him there had been attempted break-ins in the past.

Plus, he had an idea that some machine or old wind-up clock might be running without anyone knowing. A couple of hours earlier, as he was surveying the situation with the basement storage room, the audio for that camera had picked up a few minutes of whirring and scraping before it died.

You know...was the audio coming in again?

 _Scrape._

 _Scratch._

 _Scrape._

"What?!" Rory nearly shouted, because it sounded like it was an actual person moving around in there. Something big enough to make an echo. Hurriedly, Rory clicked at the camera setting to view the basement storage, but again, nothing came on the screen but blackness and static.

The audio didn't seem to be online either...but that was strange. The sounds of the haunted house on the floors below was mostly remained at a dull roar, but every once in a while, a particularly shrill scream would make its way through the vents or under the doors of the staircase.

This however, sounded like it was coming from...outside the office?

Moving to the window, Rory peeked out of the blinds. It was dark, but he could make out the streetlights Whitechapel in the distance, and the bright rays of flashlights and neon hues of glow sticks moving about in the maze of corn. But no, the window wasn't where the scraping was coming from.

Rory turned and surveyed the office, listening closely to the towers of the computers and then staring at the ceiling. Rats maybe? But all the way on the third floor of this building? PLus, they would have to be pretty huge rats to be making noises like that.

 _Creak_. Wait, that sounded almost metallic. Were there vents somewhere in here?

Oh yeah. By the bookcase, there was a huge vent. He must've forgotten about it after he's moved a couple boxes of junk out from under the computer stand and placed them in front of it. After a minute of moving boxes, the front of the vent was cleared and before Rory could reach for his tool box, he saw that the screws had already been taken out.

"Huh." The blonde only blinked, pushed his glasses up from where they were sliding down his nose, and knelt to pull the cover off. Interesting, the vent really was large, large enough for a bigger person than him to crawl through.

 _Scrape._

Rory winced, shivers running up his spine at the scrape of what was probably nails against the inner vent. Just his luck, it was either a dog-sized rat or a damn raccoon. Well, raccoons were cute, and at least he'd have something to do for the rest of the night. All the pets he'd ever had in the past had bitten him, even his gold fish- on second thought, maybe he should just take a look and close the vent back up? He'd be lucky if his face weren't torn to ribbons with rabies in the wounds by the time the night was over.

Sigh. Looks like he'd have to save raccoon-training for another time. Images of how cute the little guy would like dressed like a bank robber drifted through his head as he fumbled for his phone rather than looking for a flashlight and leaned towards the vent.

 _Creeeeaaak._

"Easy does it." Rory murmured as he crawled forward a little on his knees and reached for a box of old newspapers and dirty magazines nearby. Overturning the box carelessly, he dumped the contents onto the previously clean floor and held it at the ready. "Easy now."

The blonde had leaned just moved but a few inches into the vent, when there was an abrupt screeching from the hallway, along with what sounded like screams just as the lights cut out. Rory, who'd hit the back of his head roughly in his mad scramble to get out of the vent, cursed and dropped his phone somewhere in the darkness. Chills ran up his back and he gasped as his eyes opened wide to the pitch blackness, trying to see, as more screams came from the hallway and from what also seemed like every other direction.

Had something serious happened in the two moments he'd been away from his monitors? What the hell was happening, did someone break into the- _CRASH_!

"What's going on?!" Rory yelled and stood up abruptly when the lights came on briefly to show a flash of something yellow coming from the vent and the door to the office flying open. Just a split moment of light was enough to terrify Rory, as a hulking mass of bunny faces danced around in the hallway. The lights cut out again and Rory yelled, hurling the cardboard box at the lumbering monster, who was huge and falling into the room like a grotesque rag doll.

Rory screamed and fell back to the floor, the beast falling to land just at his feet.

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 **AN** : Well, there it is! It was originally supposed to end at Jesse's line "Don't catch a cold." but I decided there wasn't enough action or suspense. It was too domestic, lol, but the meeting with Jesse's family was always in the story plot, and I couldn't just have it be a few paragraphs, could I? Correct my mistakes, but I think it turned out alright. :D

Until next time!

 _Finished Jan. 19th 2017, 3:18 AM_


	4. Chapter 4

**AN** : Sooo, my dudes. Here we are again. Chapter Four of 'Fuve Nights at Jesse's.

I have a long ass story at the bottom, explaining pretty much my inspiration for this chapter. I've been busting my ass for the last couple weeks, rereading my stories and trying to gather enough creative energy to pound out the chapters of my Halloween stories so I can update a lot during the month of October.

I watched horror movies and scary videos online (Mr. Nightmare on youtube is the best, yo.) and I read up on some of the scary short-story books that I have, thought of my own worst fears, trying to find a muse...and finally, last week, in the most unexpected and scary, personal way, I got my inspiration. Now, it may not sound that creepy to you guys, but it was to me and my family.

Anyway, here's the next chapter, and I'm so sorry in advance for the long-ass AN's. I just wanted to share my little story :P you don't have to read it, and this is the only story and the only chapter I'll be posting it in.

To the reviewer who asked why not Jarah...well, sweetie, Im not exactly in the business of writing heterosexual pairings atm xD and besides, this is in no way a romance fic. Also, I find Sarah to be probably the most boring character in the series...don't get me wrong, I love Sarah. But she just doesn't measure up to my standards as an interesting character, let along a character interesting enough to be paired with someone like Jesse, who is undoubtably ambitioned, hot and powerful. I'll post on my Bio later why I chose to write about some characters in particular and others less.

Anyway, enjoy the chapter!

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 **Night Two, 3:31 AM**

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"Could you _not_?!" Rory demanded hysterically, as soon as he caught sight of two brunet mops atop the lanky bodies and horrifying bunny masks. "Dammit, guys! You know I hate when bunnies fly at my midsection!"

"Uhhhh..." One of the figures moaned as the heap rolled and one body separated from the rest. The lights flickered a few more times before settling into brightness once more. "Sorry, Rory..."

"Surprise!" The other figure groaned and he too, rolled off of the Bonnie automaton. The two boys lied on either side of the purple metal bunny.

"You two are horrible. I hope you know that." Rory huffed, rubbing his head where he'd hit it on the top of the vent and quickly moving to pick up his cellphone-but found that he had no idea where he'd dropped it.

"We were just trying to give you a little Halloween surprise." Benny shrugged as he sat up, from the left of Bonnie the Bunny. "Didn't turn out too well."

"You should be glad we got here when we did." Ethan wheezed as he stood up as well, pushing a purple metal arm off of him as he went. "Ouch."

"Yeah, Rory." Benny scowled too, the both of them seemingly peeved off that they'd gotten hurt- but THEY were the ones who decided to pop in like that. "This bunny was gonna open the door before we got here!"

"No way!" Rory snorted incredulously. "Bonnie's been sleeping like a log ever since I got here. He hasn't moved once."

"Well he moved now." Benny replied as he and Ethan dusted themselves off, discarding the twin brown and pink bunny masks into the fallen and empty cardboard box.

"He was standing in the hall, sideways." Ethan added. "Like he was listening. Just as were were gonna open the door...he turned and looked at me.

Rory could only blink and then crouch down to where the purple bunny lie on the carpeted floor.

"What's up, big guy?" Rory asked, examining the big magenta eyes of the robotic question. "You get lonely?"

"Don't talk to them, Rory! That's creepy and it's not like they can understand you." Benny huffed, edging away from the big metal automaton. "All they're good for is psychologically traumatizing little children."

"Like the people who pretend to be the Easter Bunny." Ethan added.

"Yeah, and they bring that gross copper smell everywhere they go." Benny stuck his tongue out in a gagging expression and took up residence in Rory's abandoned computer chair.

"This guy was facing the corner in the studio room!" Rory hauled the purple bunny off the floor with the reluctant help of Ethan, and pushed him into a corner of the room next to the air vent with surprising ease. "Like he was having a time out or something. If he really did move, we should see if he'll wake up and do it again!"

Having momentarily forgot what said bunny might just do to him if he did "wake up" from his slumber, Rory was all for the idea of waking Bonnie up to perform some of those 80's hits he was supposed to be programmed to sing.

"Look, we're here to keep you company now, right?" Ethan asked somewhat nervously. "You don't need him."

The brunet wasted no time pushing the bunny out the still open door and into the studio room a few paces down the hall. He faced him towards the wall and closed the door as Rory was beginning to clean up the mess he'd caused when he overturned the box of blush-inducing magazines.

"Anyway," Benny waggled his eyebrows, looking at the display of scantily clad women on the magazines splayed across the floor. Rory hurried to put them away. "Looks like you didn't need anyone's company but your own."

"They aren't mine!"

"It's cool, nothing to be ashamed of. I'd get bored too, sitting up here alone all night." Benny taunted and watched Rory's ears turn slightly red as the blonde caught on to the allusion in Benny's words. He shook his blonde head rapidly.

"Jesse has a perverted uncle and this was his office! That's not my fault!"

"Hey, guys." Ethan rolled his eyes at the antics of his two best friends in the world, and adjusted some knobs on his homemade scanner sitting on the desk. Next to the scanner was the main and biggest PC monitor, which had now caught the attention of all three teens. "Not to interrupt Benny's juvenile teasing or your confused innocence, Ror, but shouldn't we check to make sure everyone's okay down there?"

"Hey, really?" Rory huffed, and adjusted his glasses as he clambered off the floor and pushed Benny to the side none-too-gently in his hurry to get the monitor set up again. "You go out with Sarah for a few months and Benny actually gets Hannah Price to talk to him, and suddenly you're all better than me...yeah right."

"Hey, Hannah's totally into me! She gave me a teddy bear for my birthday!" Benny beamed at the memory.

"You filled that teddy bear with rice and wax paper and used it to test your new rocket boosters." Ethan droned dully from his position behind where Rory was kneeling at the keyboard. Benny was idly flipping through the magazines- until Ethan snatched it out of his hands and threw it in the garbage bin.

"I don't choose just any stuffed animal to simulate human physiology." Benny held his hands up. "That bear was special to me."

"Aw, noooo." Rory whined as the monitor flickered uselessly. "No! Damn these dinosaur PC's! Why do old people have to be so OLD?"

"Huh? What's the matter?" The taller of the two other geeks asked as the brunet's both leaned in to get a closer look as their blonde friend fiddled with the keyboard.

"And why the dig on old people?" Rory moved to the wires in the back of the screen.

"This thing is jacking up!" Rory huffed, perplexed. "That's so weird, it was working perfectly earlier...and if Jesse's uncle lecher wasn't such a cheapskate, I might be able to do my job well."

"Yeah, I'm glad I'm not you." Benny murmured and then grinned sheepishly as Rory gave him a scathing glare.

"Look, I'll go and check the main breakers downstairs." Ethan grimaced. "There's a possibility that not every electrical connection recovered from that power outage."

"E's right." Benny got up and he too began looking for potential problems on the monitor and PC tower. "Ror, maybe you should go and see if everyone's alright. Well, I guess I could come if you want? No use really being up here connection is down...the wifi itself could take another several minutes to recover, if this place isn't at top speed."

"Actually, I'll be fine." Rory jumped up. "It would be great if you could stay and make sure that this office isn't unoccupied if Jesse decides to come up here and crack some skulls. I'll only be a few minutes."

"It shouldn't take that long to find the main breakers either." Ethan shrugged. "They're probably in the basement or in the janitorial closet."

"Alright, I'll stay." Benny sighed. "But if Jesse comes up to make trouble, I'm putting the hurt on him."

"Yeah." Rory gave Ethan a look that made the brunet hide a smile. Then the blonde dug into the contents of the computer desk and pulled out one single flashlight-the kind night guards or policemen used. It was steel, black and looked/felt like it used some serious batteries.

"You got a flashlight, E?" Rory asked. "I lost my phone somewhere in here, but if you need a light, I could always try out my night vision app- oh wait, never mind. Well, I could just stumble around in the dark if the lights go out-"

"No, thanks dude, I got my own light." Ethan smiled at Rory's earnest enthusiasm and held up his own phone. "Let's go."

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"Everyone's okay?" Rory asked, walking steadily through the crowd of people at the main entrance. He came to stand at the top of the stairs and yelled into the crowd. "Is anyone hurt?"

The lights had gone off a second time on his and Ethan's journey down the twisting stairway, and again just then when Rory found the front of the line. Everyone, it looked like, had their own phone lights and glow sticks and such.

"The emergency lights will come on shortly." Rory announced, as he looked at his clock. He'd checked the emergency system himself the night before- the lights were set on a timer to flip on after thirty seconds of complete power loss.

Just as the emergency lights would have come on, the front entrance's lights flickered back on, and the sounds of scary music turned on from inside the building.

"Well, how about that, right?" Rory asked himself, and then yelled over everyone again that the problem was being fixed, and everything would go back to normal shortly. Hopefully this last flicker of power meant that E had found and successfully fixed the problem.

"Okay, okay, is no one hurt?" A new voice over a loud speaker came on- and Rory turned to see one Jesse Black bringing up the rear of the crowd. Alongside him were Dara, Gord, and a few other members of the Haunted House crew Rory had seen earlier in the day.

"Please proceed as normal." Rory smiled reassuringly at the people next in line as he got a text from Ethan and Benny consecutively- Ethan seemed confident that there was no more problems to be found at the main power box, and Benny had almost everything up and running again. It was times like these that Rory was glad to have such nerdy, reliable friends.

"Hey, there's some creepy guy running around the cod maze." One person said to him, on his was back inside. The group of friends was coming around the back of the warehouse- except it was on the opposite side of where they should have been coming back.

"I think that's generally what people do when they want to scare you. It is a "Scary" corn maze, guys. It's not called that for nothing." Rory crossed his arms, and realized he was shining his flashlight in the eyes of some tall and squinting brunet kid standing next to him. "Oh, sorry dude. And guys, you know the exit is on the other side. What are you doing over here? The Black family made their rules and limitations pretty clear in the sign out front."

"But he looked out of place." One boy said from behind someone Rory assumed to be his big sister.

"Yeah, he wasn't wearing a costume like the others." The older girl said and Rory cocked his head in interest. "He was in a black hoodie with the the hood pulled up...and he was dirty, like really dirty."

"Some guys in the field even have fake chainsaws." Another girl in the group of seven shivered, "But this guy was so creepy and he didn't even have a mask. He wasn't trying to scare us, but..."

"Okay, a guy in a black hoodie and dirty jeans, anything else?" Rory asked, and mentally jotted down the details. He needed to get back to the security cams.

"Dirty ripped jeans, with mud on the bottoms. He was redheaded too." The brunet kid Rory had shined his flashlight at before offered. "Taller than me, and I'm six foot. He looked like he had something in his pocket too. Something shiny. We saw him through the corn, and that's why we came out this way. He was on the path we were headed to, or we turned and ran this way, through the stalks."

"Okay..." Rory decided to type the notes roughly into his cellphone- and then remembered that he didn't have his cellphone. "I'll be sure to check up on it. Thanks for telling me. Have a safe night, guys!"

The group called out goodbyes as Rory left them to bound into the warehouse side door, unlocking the door with the ring of keys attached to a stretchy pulley thing on his belt. When he walked in the door, he met Ethan coming from the Haunted House going on in the middle of the building.

"Everything good to go?" Rory asked.

"Should be." The brunet nodded and together they started up to the third floor. "If anything else goes wrong, I'm pretty sure it'll be because someone's messing with us, or there's a thunderstorm outside."

"It's the end of October."

"Exactly. So we should have no problems."

"Guys!" Benny yelled down the hallway as the pair approached from the stairs. "You should see this! And I really need to tell you something!"

Sharing a look, Rory and Ethan hurried to the office at the end of the hall. It must've been either really cool, or really creepy- Benny never sounded that disturbed. Where they passed the glass window of the studio room, they could see Bonnie the bunny still facing the wall where Ethan had left him.

"What is it B-dog?" Rory asked as Benny threw him an exasperated look, and then pointed to something on the monitor.

At first, the monitor just showed the people milling in and out of the Haunted House- screaming and laughing, as heard from the little speaker next to the monitor that Rory had never seen before.

"I found this speaker in one of those boxes." Benny explained. "Only a few cameras have working audio, but it's better than nothing if you need to listen in...and someone seems to have added one more camera since you last booted up the system, Rory. There's a camera on the cornfields now."

"There was someone talking about a creepy guy in the cornfields." Rory remembered suddenly, scowling at himself for forgetting so easily. "A group of kids...they were freaked out. Said they saw some guy in a black hood who didn't belong in the maze."

"I seen him." Benny went still as he switched the audio off and zoomed in the camera to the entrance of the corn maze. "Right here. He was talking to some people, and they turned back around the way they came. They hurried, like they were scared."

"Maybe we should report it to the police." Ethan asked suddenly, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly.

"But," Benny added. "If it's just your standard citizen in a costume, we'd look like idiots trying to get the popo here. They'd probably think it's nothing, or that were playing a joke on them...besides, I kinda already have footage from the fields that people have recorded on their phones. He doesn't look like he's doing anyone any harm, just walking around."

"And we don't even know if it's someone dangerous." Rory added, and then flopped down to the floor, sitting where there were previously boxes of junk and playboys. Benny had pushed them all in front of the big open vent. The metal cover was also gone, which probably meant the brunet nerd had also screwed that back on.

Benny had had time to clean up, get the systems rebooted, hook up some audio, and hack into several cellphones all before he and Ethan had made it back to the room. All in fifteen minutes.

"I'm glad my friends are geekier than I am." Rory admitted happily, to the respective amusement and annoyance of his two pals.

"Yeah yeah." Ethan smiled and Benny rolled his eyes.

"Well you should be." The tallest of the three snarked back. "Because what I do isn't easy. And it's nice to have some appreciation once in a while."

"Oh please." Ethan was the one rolling his eyes now. "Those cellphones had to be cake to hack, they were probably using the Black's wifi or something."

 _Creaak_.

"Dude, you know rich people keep their wifi under wraps." Benny retorted. "They weren't using the Black's wifi...unless it was coming from their garage or something, or one of their cars."

"Who has separate wifi receivers for their cars, Benny?"

"Stuck up rich people!"

"Uh, guys?" Rory asked, as he heard that same creaking again. For some reason, it gave him an awful feeling in the pit of his stomach. The last time he'd had a feeling like this, he'd accidentally deleted all his progress on So You Think You Can Scream: The Video Game.

"Just a second, Rory, I'm defending my geeks honor." Benny replied, and Rory blinked at him, leaning back into his place by the wall, listening for the raccoon in the wall.

 _Creeeeeaaak_.

 _Scrape._

"Benny, why do you always have to turn everything into a fight?"

"You're one to talk!"

"Guys!" Rory shouted, making the other two teens jump. Satisfied with their attention, Rory nodded towards the stacked boxes.

"What is it Rory?" Ethan asked, containing his exasperation at the whole situation.

"I keep hearing something in the vent." Rory whined. "I think it's a raccoon or a rat."

"How would a raccoon even-" Ethan began, and then shook his head. "Never mind. Where is it? In this vent?"

"Yeah." Rory stuck a foot out and was just able to nudge the tower of boxed askew. "I heard it earlier too."

Ethan got on his knees and pushed the boxes to the side, and Rory realized Benny hadn't screwed the door back on like he'd thought- he'd just placed the vent door back in place. Ethan was just reaching to look in the vent when he hissed and pulled back. He looked at his hand.

"Jeez." Ethan shook his hand out. "I just got a nasty shock."

"Here, let me see." Benny took the metal flashlight from where Rory had left it on the ground and turned it on. He hesitated a second, and then pressed a hand to the thin metal surface of the vent door, apparently trying to ground himself. Then he turned on the flashlight and peered inside.

"I don't see anything." Benny initially said, then shuffled further on his knees toward the opening. "Just a lot of dust, further in. It's pretty gross."

"Hey, look at that." Ethan said, crouching down next to his friend and pointing to a spot somewhere Rory couldn't see. "It looks like somethings been crawling around in here, the dust is disturbed in some places."

"Like I said, gross." Benny responded, but then actually put a knee inside the vent, and scooted in a little. His flashlight flickered and he began hitting it, grumbling something about his batteries always dying at the worst moments.

"Careful!" Ethan hissed, grabbing the back of Benny's purple striped hoodie. "You don't know how strong this duct is!"

"Oh, I'm just a little ways in."

"See anything else?" Rory asked and piled in next to the two other boys, and crammed his head in to see as well. It was a tight fit, but all three boys could now see into the vent, albeit not as clearly as Benny could.

"Nah, not really."

"Maybe it was just the rats." Ethan sighed and pulled himself away from the vent. "I'm gonna go check on the security cams. They really should have police officers stationed at key points along these things. There should be more than just one amateur security guard."

"Woah, look." Benny pointed down the vent, and the metal creaked as Rory too leaned into the vent and looked down the shaft. "What is that?"

"It's yellow, whatever it is..." Rory cocked his head to the side. "It looks...like yellow bubbles."

"Should I crawl in and grab-" Benny's question died in his throat, at the same time a surprised and fearful sound left Rory's mouth. Benny shut the flashlight off and made frantic motions with his hands while Rory simply gaped.

The yellow bubble thing seemed to reach forward and expand, into several chunky appendages. Five, to be exact. Then, fingers outstretched, it retreated slowly back into the darkness of the vent, and around a corner, without a sound.

"Oh..."

"Dude- out, out!" Benny waited for all of a moment for Rory to back out of the vent, before violently shoving himself out as well.

In his haste, he accidentally dropped the big black flashlight into the metal plates of the ventilation duct. The flashlight made a loud, echoing, clanging sound as it bounced and rolled into the darkness.

"What?" Ethan asked, then asked again louder when Benny immediately scrambled for the vent's metal cover. "What?! Guys, what's up?"

"It was a hand." Benny answered unsteadily. "It was a freakin' horribly designed yellow hand thing. It freaking moved when I shined the light at it."

"Uh...uh..." Rory couldn't find the words at that moment. Though he wasn't as close to the hand as Benny had been, and although he knew beforehand that the automatons could move of their own free will...it was still very creepy. "Dudes..."

He'd just realized just now how creepy it was...and how unquestionably, undeniably _cool_!

"That was so cool!" Rory beamed, while his two friends gaped at him like he was an idiot.

"Rory, only you could think that way about this!" Benny hissed and searched around for some screws to pin the cover back onto the vent. He was freaked and irritated at Rory for being so clueless. This was why Benny just wanted to cancel on the stupid Black family after realizing he couldn't make it for all five days to be the security guard. This was why Rory couldn't be left unsupervised for lengthy periods of time.

And who the hell's idea was it to make vents big enough for a giant robot to crawl through anyway?!

"Dudes, I gotta go check that out!" Rory announced loudly and while Ethan just looked disturbed and disbelieving, Benny hissed at him like a snake and waved his hands down in a violent motion to shut the hell up.

"Not tonight your not." Benny shook his head violently. "Or any night. You didn't sign up for this!"

"Actually, I kinda did." Rory looked at Benny with his big, blue eyes and Benny scowled. "Well, actually, you did. I'm just trying to do a good job, and who knows if I'll ever get another chance to study these things when they're in free-roam mode like this?"

"Of all things for you to develop an interest in, it has to be psycho free-roaming robots!"

"Well, we may have more problems than just the yellow bubbles, guys." Ethan voiced from over at the monitors. "Take a look at this- more and more people are leaving. People are running out of the corn maze...Jesse looks mad."

"Jesse?"

"Is it that hooded guy?" Benny asked and again, the boys gathered together to peer at the middle monitor on the desk. Indeed, more people were leaving...and Jesse was headed indoors. The now unmasked employees were leaving as well.

"You didn't tell me you were having company over." An annoyed voice asked from the door, and all three boys in front of the computer gave varying pitches of surprised screams.

"Warn a guy!" Benny gasped, and sat down heavily on the stack of boxes next to the vent, before thinking better of it and standing back up.

"I didn't plan this! They were in town and showed up to help I guess?" Rory gave Jesse a sheepish smile as the dark haired man rolled his eyes and strode into the room to stand behind Ethan and in front of the monitor as well.

"Whatever, the more nerds the merrier." Jesse scowled. "What with all these electrical problems. What the hell is going on here Keaner? And why isn't it fixed yet?"

Just as Rory was going to open his mouth, Ethan turned and looked up at the older man with distaste.

"Hey, it's not his fault you have crappy wiring. That's probably what's causing all the problems."

"Yeah, it's you and your family's fault for neglecting this place for so long!" Benny couldn't resist adding. "This place could have been so much cooler if it weren't for all the freaking rats!"

"Can it, Weird." Jesse shot an irritated look at the lanky teen and then squinted back at the monitor. "No ones talking to you. I was talking to this blonde kid here, who's supposed to be taking care of security. Things don't look all that secure."

"It's not my fault! Benny's right, you do have a rat problem that I tried hard to fix, and this place can very well be faulty from lack of proper care." Rory deflated then. "But you're right, I'm not a very good security guard...if the guys hadn't been here, it would've taken me a lot longer to get everything running again as smoothly as it is."

"Quit feeling sorry for yourself and tell me what's going on." Jesse dismissed Rory's almost-apology and pushed Ethan aside, sliding chair and all, to loom over the main monitor. "Why is this camera system lacking? Just as I walked in the door, I seen myself walking into the east entrance from this screen. That has to be a fifty second lag at least."

"I think the power outage might have messed something up?" Rory guessed and received a dark and scathing glare. He shrank a little. "Sometimes if things don't shut down or reboot correctly, it can-"

"Okay, so how do we fix it then?" Jesse demands impatiently. For once, his sunglasses were nowhere to be seen, and his icy eyes flashed in the bright light from the spare monitor to the left. The displayed blue screen added vivid dimension to the older male's irises.

"I-"

"Well?!"

"I don't know." Rory admitted. "It's gonna take some time. We can restart it, or-"

"Okay then...time." Jesse sighed. "Well, we certainly have enough of that now. Thank god tonight's House was scheduled to end at four.

A quick glance at the digital clock in the corner of one computer monitor told Rory that it was currently 4:22 AM.

"People are still clearing out. Hopefully they haul ass before the police get here."

"The what?!" All three teens asked the man currently surveying the monitors with distaste. Jesse stood to his full height and left the room. A step into the hall though, he turned back and gave a sardonic half-smile to Rory's friends.

"You two nerds were helpful tonight." If possible, his smile became even more sarcastic than it was a moment ago. "So thanks. Who knows what would've happened to all those innocent people of you hadn't been here...you've been a great help."

Before the two brunet's could think to say anything, Jesse pointed a finger at Rory's general direction and then crooked it in a 'come hither' motion.

"So if you could catch these cameras up to speed, and possibly hack into the electrical plants cameras down the road...it would be very well appreciated."

"Hey, who do you think you are?!" Ethan sputtered in outrage as Benny puffed up like a porcupine. "Rory are you GOING with him?!"

"Dude!" Benny cried as Rory quickly fell into step behind Jesse, who was now stalking down the hall to the east staircase.

'Sorry!' Rory mouthed, wincing guiltily at the wide open eyes of his friends. 'He's the boss.'

"He's a jackass!" Benny held his hands out helplessly like he simply couldn't comprehend the situation. "Have I been transported to an alternate universe where my friends just blindly follow someone like Jesse Black...?!"

But Rory only caught the last few words, ("What the hell, E?! Rory's gone dark side!") before disappearing around the corner and to the east staircase.

However, he didn't fail to notice Bonnie, hands raised and pressed up against the glass of the studio room when they'd passed it. When he remembered from the morning previously where an automaton known as 'Foxy' had been standing, he edged a little closer to the taller, dark haired male.

He could handle Bonnie, he was cool. But he didn't know whether Foxy was a chick or a dude, and the way every part of him was pretty much falling apart was disturbing. He hadn't had a chance to look at the Fox's circuits yet.

"Where are we going?" Rory asked suddenly, once he realized that they weren't heading towards the front of the building, but taking a long straight path towards the back of the warehouse.

They walked along the wall where there were tiny glowing lights illuminating the narrow path like in a movie theatre. As they passed by the Haunted House props and walkways, Rory could hear and see people flipping things off, turning lights on and chatting amongst themselves as they took off makeup and got out of their costumes.

"You're going to lock the door behind me and then see that everyone gets outside and to their cars safely." Jesse sighed, and looked for a moment as though he actually regretted asking for such a thing. Well...he didn't really ask.

They'd come to the back doors now, two standard rectangles of metal with yellow and black tape lining the crash bars. Next to the door, Rory had just noticed a long black duffel bag that Jesse was now picking up.

"Wait, then what are you going to do?" Rory asked, confused as Jesse pulled a lanyard from around his neck and pressed it none too gently into Rory's chest. The blonde looked at the lanyard, realizing there was a small keycard attached to the bottom.

"Look, I'm giving you this, alright?" Jesse the held someone else out to Rory- held it out and waited for Rory to take it, instead of just shoving it at him. When Rory comprehended what the object was, he knew why.

"Wha-" Rory blinked at the bulky taser being held out to him. "Why are you giving me a taser?!"

"Take it." After a second of hesitation, Rory reached out and took it.

"Why-"

"I've given you the means to set the alarms on the warehouse and forty million volts to protect yourself with." Jesse pointed to a small switch at the end of the baton and then at a button on the side of the rod. "This is the safety. There's the activation button. It's an idiots weapon, but it's dangerous."

"Hey, wait a second!" Rory pleaded as Jesse lifted something big, black and intimidating out of the bag. "I wanna come with!"

"You're crazy." Jesse shook his head. "Look kid, there's more than one person in those black hoodies running around, and they have knives. Possibly guns too. The police are swamped right now, and it'll take them at least twenty minutes to get their asses over here."

"But-but-"

"Stay, make sure everyone gets out safe, and then lock the doors with the keys and set the alarms by sliding this card through the slot at the main entrance." Jesse sighed again, and raised his rifle, which had a flashlight attached to it also.

"Can't G-"

"Hey, Jess." Gord turned a corner and came to stand next to the pair. His voice was tense, and all business. "As far as we know now, there's maybe seven or eight guests left in the maze, not including those who aren't supposed to be there."

"Still two of them?"

"Looks like it." Gord and Jesse shared a look before turning to Rory.

"Get moving kid, I'll be back once everything is settled." Jesse nodded and then pushed open the big metal door. On his way out, Gord took his own keys and locked the crash bars behind him.

"You'd better go do whatever job Jesse gave you, little man." Gord offered a small, tense smile. "Just so you know, the main house up the hill has its own security system and overnight employees, so I'll be in this place all night until dawn, same as you. I got the doors once the employees leave, okay?"

"O-Okay..." Rory stood there in shock for a moment, noticing numbly as Gord again walked to the front of the warehouse, that he too had a keycard attached to his hip, along with a handgun and flashlight.

The blonde teen looked at the back door, then back to where Gord had gone, and then down to the unextended taser in his hand. He then reached for his cellphone, realized again that he'd lost it, and then bolted down the same side path he and Jesse had taken.

.

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 **AN** : Sorry for the long wait, bros! Though I doubt many were eagerly awaiting the next chapter lol. This is like my least popular story, but somehow I really love writing this fic. :D

So, interesting story behind the plot of this chapter and the next. (Nothing important in these next paragraphs, just a little creepy story. You can skip this part if you want.)

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About a week ago, my little sister, little brother and I were in our old garage playing hopscotch and other chalk games (lol) when I was like "Okay, I need to go inside for a minute and check the food I have cooking." And I went inside the house, like twenty feet away. Not two minutes later, they came running inside a d told me my little sister had seen a tall man in a black hoodie with the hood pulled up beside our garage. When he saw her looking at him, he ran behind the garage.

A little info: our house, which is really a small trailer, is to the side a bit and right in front of our actual house, which we haven't lived in for five years now. (It was over fifty years old, and was starting to fall apart in places. We needed somewhere to live quick, hence the tiny trailer.) Anyway, it's less than ten feet behind our trailer and the garage attached to the house is wide open due to an old an broken garage door that will no longer close. The door inside the garage leading into the house is always unlocked, and as far as I know, we have lost the key.

Why this carelessness, you may ask? Well, because we live in the middle of freakin' nowhere, man. Lmao, so there should be no reason for any creeps with hoods to be walking around here. There's one small town ten miles east and one small town ten miles west, and we live in the trees, at the end of a long and curvy dirt road. Very remote, with just a couple of neighbors nearby. And our house in particular is hard to get to due to the dense underbrush surrounding our yard...so whoever that freak was, needed to either walk through the trees and poison ivy, swim through these manure-polluted lakes that also surround our home, or walk down the one road that leads to our place. If they walked on the road, they'd need to pass our kind but trigger-happy neighbors as well.

So after my little siblings told me that there was someone outside, I went out to get our shit from the yard and to lock up my car (iPad, wallet, keys, etc) and as I was going inside again, I yelled that whoever the hell was in the back of the house, they can't be here, and they needed to leave. When I went outside a second time to have a look, my sister said she seen the man again, out the back window. He came into the back yard again, from the opposite end he'd come from before, and again, he bolted behind the house when he seen that he'd been spotted. (Dumbass, right?)

I yelled out the back window again that we knew he was there and he was scaring the kids, so he had to haul ass before I called the police. (Probably a mistake on my part, because that's what I ALWAYS get mad at horror movie characters for doing, but we'll get to that later.)

So then I called our neighbors to see if he was one of their people, because I didn't want to call 911 on some stupid kid from down the road taking a walk, and I could hear that our neighbors had teenagers over. They'd been playing basketball and volleyball, grilling out and playing music for the last couple days. But our neighbor said that it was just his daughter and her friend out there today, and I should probably call the police, because he too didn't know anyone of the guys description.

Fast forward: it was quickly getting dark, and after I called my dad at work and the police, we could hear and see the guy walking around our house through the curtained windows. Well...I didn't actually see him, but I did hear things and my little sister said she saw his shadow several times, and seen him shine a flashlight outside. I completely believed her, as if she was lying, it would be the first time, and she was doing one hell of a good job acting terrified. And she has like NO poker face at all lol so I knew she wasn't lying.

The police didn't end up finding shit, but he did check in our old house, and the back yard. He was a nice guy, and took down our story on a notepad, and when he saw that I was carrying an extended police standard baton, he was amused and showed me how to hold it and where to hit people most effectively. :D

Now, you'd think that'd be the end, and this freak who was stalking our home would have just moved on...well, sadly and terrifyingly not. The very next night, he was outside again, walking around and making noise. While I was making sure the house was secure, my sister said she heard him rush past my bedroom window (I sleep with my baby brother, and she was in there with him) and knock over or step on a soda can lying outside. He then swore, and during this moment, my brother moved in his sleep and hit the wall. She said when my little brother made that noise, he swore again, and took off running on the gravel.

As per freaking usual in these situations, the police didn't find shit again. There were two who visited this time, and they took off in different directions, surrounding the house. They said they didn't even see any footprints in the dew-covered tall grass (it's been a month or so since we mowed the lawn lol) and if we heard anything else, to call again. But the thing is...we did call again. The fucker came back right after they left. I should mention that at the edge of our yard is a barbed wire fence from when my family had horses in ancient times, and the grass and weeds beyond there is a lot taller than me, (and I'm 5"8).There are two little falling apart barns there, and also in the surrounding underbrush, it is very easy to just lie in the grass, hold still, and disappear.

The police didn't come the second time we called. When my dad came home, I went to unlock the door, and my little sister said she saw him out the window again, running into the tall weeds behind the fence, and disappear behind the twin barns. When I told my dad, we both went and checked it out, but we too saw no footprints, didn't see anyone or hear anything but the sound of crickets. I kept hearing things all night, and tiptoeing around the house, because it's a raised trailer and makes noise like crazy when we walk.

I didn't sleep until the sun came up, on both nights, and several nights after. I hear the things I used to hear all the time: like little unexplained thuds, scratching outside the trailer (probably of the mouse we've been trying to catch) and the wind moving broken pieces of the old house. Only now, I'm not so sure if they're just normal noises like they were before, or if they're the sounds of someone walking around, checking for unlocked windows. I wonder if they're something to worry about, or if I'm just overhearing things now. I hate it. Since my dad started working nights in the summer times, I've gotten used to being home alone with the kids, but now I've gotta admit, I'm a little spooked. There should be No One out here but us and our neighbors. Yesterday, I learned to load and fire a rifle.

Now, I have trouble sleeping- even last night I didn't go to bed until well after four in the morning, when my dad finally came home from a night out with his friends...I can't relax knowing that there's a freak like that who could come back. Like, who is he? And why was he here? He would have had to walk a half a mile at least off one of the main roads near our house to even spot us by accident in the trees. Was it some homeless dude who needed somewhere to squat for a couple nights? And why did he come back twice? The old house is empty and abandoned, if that's where he was staying. Where did he go to eat and drink during that time? And why come back?

I think I'm hearing things. It's broad daylight outside, and I've gotten up twice since writing this authors note, to look outside because I hear something. Nothing's out there, as far as I can see. I'm planning to go outside with the kids after I upload this so we can play our version of mini-golf, lol. I'll probably be awake until the wee hours tonight as well, which is lucky for you guys :D because now I have more spooky time to write my stories!

I debated putting this story on my Bio as well, but it really has nothing to do with my stories as an author. Just with this particular chapter and the next, for this story.

Until next time, bros! Keep it spooky! Hope everyone's had an awesome summer, and try to power through going back to school! Hang in there :)

 _Uploaded: August 20th, 2017, sometime after 6:30 PM :)_


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